AN 



T^TsiTORICAL REVIEW 

OF THE POLICY OF THE 

ITISH GOVERNMENT, 

IN THE 

Treatment of its Catholic Subjects; 

WITH A CONSIDERATION 



By HENRY WILLIAM TANCRED, Esq. 

BARRISTER AT LAW. 



We must all obey the gieat law of change; it is the most powerful 
law of our nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation/* 
Burke's First Letter to Sir H, Latigrishe. 

Vol vi. p, 369, JEdit. 1808. 



LONDON : 

Printed ly J. F. Dove, St, John's Square, ClerkcnuelL 
FOR JOSEPH BOOKER, 

TVEW BOND STREET. 

1815. 



TO CHARLES BUTLER, ESQ. 



Sir,' 

By prefixing your name to the 
following pages, I am anxious to express, 
publicly, those sentiments of respect for 
your character, which I have long entertain- 
ed. But, as the value of a Dedication de- 
pends upon the merit of the work accom- 
panying it, the present may not be such a 
tribute as you certainly deserve, and I could 
wish to offer. 

It was by your own writings that I was 
first led to reflect upon the policy of that 
system of laws, from the remains of which 
the Catholics of the empire seek to be re- 
lieved. 

Of the same profession with yourself, I 
am under obligations to a member of it, who 
has extended its reputation ; and who has 
proved to the world, that the same mind 
may be stored with a consummate know- 



ledge of the most abstruse branch of the 
law, and enriched with a fund of various 
literature. 

Neither do I know where to look for a 
more striking instance of the prejudicial ef- 
fects of penal restrictions, than to the case 
of one, whom merit, however great and ge- 
nerally admitted, could not entitle to those 
dignities, which Protestants, with inferior 
quahficfitions, have often reached. 

I am, Sir, 

Yours, very truly, 
Henry William Tancred. 



Lincoln's Inn, 
Feb. 24,1815. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



It seems probable that the clamis of 
our Cathohc fellow-subjeets will, during 
the present Session of Parliament, again 
be submitted to the consideration of the 
legislature. 

Upon any great political question, all 
who are in search of truth, whatever 
may be the inclination of their opinions, 
are equally interested in promoting full, 
and candid, and continual discussion. 
It is the only mode of putting at rest, 
safely and for ever, subjects, on which 
the hopes and prejudices of millions 
are deeply excited. It is by discussion 



vi 

aloncj that the fears of the ignorant can 
be overcome, or the clamours of the il- 
liberal silenced. 

It cannot be denied, that a reluctance 
in making farther concessions to the Ca- 
tholics, is still felt by a considerable 
portion of the Protestant community. 
It is the author's firni persuasion, that 
this opposition arises from a misappre- 
hension of the nature and effects of the 
penal system : — from not bearing in mind 
sufficiently, the treatment to which the 
adherents of the Romish church have, in 
this country, at different periods of its 
historj^jbeen exposed; — and from ascrib- 
ing to the influence of rehgion exclu- 
sively, events, for which other, and those 
temporary causes, more properly ac- 
count. 

It has been the author's object, there- 



Vll 



fore, to discover by what principles of 
government the supreme power of the 
state was guided, w^ien it first subjected 
to punishment those who dissented from 
its religious establishment. If these shall 
be admitted to have been erroneous, it 
deserves to be considered, in what de- 
gree the hostility, which the Catholics 
may have displayed to the civil institu- 
tions and best interests of their native 
country, was the natural consequence of 
errors of policy on the part of their 
rulers. We may thus be induced to re- 
flect upon the caution necessary to be 
observed in attempting to estimate the 
effects, which the profession of any par- 
ticular system of faith is calculated to 
pi'oduce in its adherents, from a reference 
to past times, w hen ignorance and bigo- 
try were equal and excessive, in Chris- 



viii 

tians of all denominations; — when no 
religion was treated with indifference ; — 
but, when one was supported by extra- 
vagant exertions of temporal power, and 
another harassed by every vexation, 
which perverted ingenuity could devise. 



AN 

HISTORICAL REVIEW, 



CHAP. 1. 

State of the Question. 

That full participation in the privi- 
leges of the British Constitution, which 
the Catholics of the United Kingdom 
have so repeatedly sought, the Legisla- 
ture has hitherto thought proper to with- 
hold ; and they remain a distinct and 
degraded class in the empire. But a 
disposition to consider their Claims seems 
every year more widely felt ; and, if we 
may judge from experience, the disin- 
terested are less hostile in proportion as 
they are better informed. This is an 
encouragement to these religionists to 
keep their cause perpetually under the 



2 



public eyCy and to court an examination 
of their principles. 

Upon such a subject as the Catholic 
Question 5 bare acquiescence in the deci- 
sions of the more enlightened, is all that 
can be hoped, or indeed wished, from 
the mass of the people. In mixed ques- 
tions of religion and politics, the lower 
orders of every country are incapable of 
judging with accuracy and impartiality. 
Their views are narrow, and their pre- 
judices inveterate. Hence candour and 
moderation are, in their minds, identified 
with lukewarmness. Of the fallibility 
of human judgment they take no cogni- 
zance ; and to torment their fellow-crea- 
tures is the earnest they are usually pre- 
pared to give of sincerity in their faith. 

The Catholic Question too has receiv- 
ed, and will continue to receive, the 
same treatment, which the Slave Trade, 
or any other important subject of dis- 



3 



cussion, has experienced. It affords to 
trading politicians of every profession, 
and of every rank in society, an oppor- 
tunity of sacrificing national to private 
interests, which is not to be neglected. 
Connected with the Catholic Claims, 
there are so many delusions to w^hich 
the honest but ignorant may cling ; so 
many points, taken singly, may be swelled 
into a magnitude, which, when united 
and compared with others, they do not 
possess, that a real trader has great ad- 
vantages. He appears unconvinced, 
when in fact he is not in search of truth ; 
he seems to share in the alarms and er- 
rors of multitudes, from which, in rea- 
lity, he is often wholly free; and his 
opposition to the Catholics passes rea- 
dily as zeal for the public good, and not 
as the contemptible selfishness of a man 
absorbed in the indefatigable pursuit of 
his own. 



Dismissing, therefore, all those who» 
b2 



4 



by common consent, should never be 
made parties to the discussion ; and this 
other portion of our fellow-subjects who 
are perfectly indifferent to conviction, 
there remains a small but estimable band 
of opponents, to whom alone arguments 
of justice and policy can with propriety 
be addressed. They resist the Catholic 
Claims, because they conscientiously be- 
lieve they cannot with safety grant them : 
they grasp the powers of legislation with 
a fervent wish to exert them to their 
legitimate ends : they scorn that vulgar 
wretched elevation, which consists, not 
in fairly raising oneself, but in unfairly 
depressing another. 

Suppose an adversary of this stamp, 
a man of a good heart and plain under- 
standing ; impatient of oppression when 
exercised against himself; of an erect 
mind, neither agitated by vulgar fears, 
nor enslaved by selfish prejudices. I 
should with confidence tell such a man. 



5 



that his opposition to the Catholic Claims 
was unwarranted ; and that I thought so 
for the following reasons : 

Government, as a science, consists in 
a knowledge of the springs of human 
action, and of the best mode of manag- 
ing these so as to produce the greatest 
possible good to the community. All 
government, whatever may be its origin, 
has for its sole object the happiness of 
those over whom it is exercised. In a 
state of nature, no individual acknow- 
ledges any rule but his own will ; in a 
state of society, government of some 
form or other must exist : and its power 
consists of the aggregate of certain 
powers, certain portions of individual 
liberty, which, for the general good, 
men when united in a social body, ex- 
pressly or impliedly surrender. 

Now, no rational being willingly parts 
with any thing valuable, without expect- 



6 



ing to receive its price in exchange. All 
power is valuable to its possessor ; and 
the price men hope to receive for the 
portion they yield, is the enjoyment in 
security of the remainder which they re- 
tain in their own hands. That govern- 
ment is necessarily the best, w^hich, paj^s 
this price of security with the least de- 
duction from the natural rights of indi- 
viduals. The lirst and great law by 
which all systems of rule are held to- 
gether, is, that the interests of the ma- 
jority are to be acted upon as the in- 
terests of the w^hole body. This law is 
paramount and really fundamental, be- 
cause it would be impossible for govern- 
ment to subsist a moment, unless it were 
previously recognized. It follows, there- 
fore, that the minority in any country 
may have greater deductions made from 
their natural rights, than are required 
from the majority in the same commu- 
nity. But, then, this ought to be done 
only in furtkerance of the great object 



7 



for which men submit at ail to oovern- 
ment; it ought only to take place when 
the happiness of the majority can be in 
no other way effectually secured. It is 
a great misfortune in any political so- 
ciety, when the rights of one class of 
men cannot be protected, without in- 
fringing on the rights of another. But 
it is a crying sin before God and man, 
and violation of the end of all govern- 
ment, if this infiingment is carried one 
step farther, or continued one moment 
longer than the happiness of the whole 
society, in the above restricted sense, 
absolutely demands. 

Every one must admit, that a case of 
this nature occurs under the British Con- 
stitution. The Roman Catholics bear 
all the burthens, and submit to all the 
restraints imposed by the state ; but, are 
precluded from reaping all the benefits^ 
which Protestants do or can derive in 
consequence. The ground for this dis- 



8 



tinctioiij so much to the prejudice of the 
former, is their adherence to a religious 
faith 5 which, though formerly the faith 
of the whole empire, has now for nearly 
300 yea;s be n abandoned by the greater 
part of the population. Is then the 
profession of this faith inconsistent with 
the happiness of the majority, in this 
political society ? 

The religious belief of any man, or 
set of men, forms of itself no part of 
the concern of the civil magistrate. Our 
faith is not in the power of ourselves; 
and, therefore, never can be, nor ever 
is, placed under the controul of another. 
Civil government, in its powers and ends, 
is merely temporal ; it regards the con- 
duct of man to his neighbour, and not 
of man to God. An erroneous concep- 
tion of the Deity and his attributes, is 
not a subject upon, which human laws 
can animadvert, unless it be followed by 
a violation of the duty we owe to our 



9 



fellow-creatures. If error upon such sub- 
lime subjects were manifest, and capable 
of strict proof, the powers of government 
could never, consistently with the ends 
for which they are given, be called in 
for the suppression of such error, or the 
propagation of juster notions. No er- 
rors, however, upon the speculative 
points of Christianity are susceptible of 
demonstrative evidence; and the appli- 
cation of punishment as the means of 
suppressing such doctrines as are con- 
ceived to be erroneous, or of converting 
men to such as are believed to be true, is 
equally unjust, absurd, and tyrannical. 
And when we talk of punishment on ac- 
count of religious opinion, we must ex- 
tend our ideas beyond the stake and the 
gibbet : a man may properly be said to 
be punished on account of opinion, 
when those objects of his choice and 
ambition are withheld from him, which, 
but for the maintenance of such opi- 
nion, his rank, or fortune, or talents, 

c 



10 



or industry, would enable him to at- 
tain. 

These principles are trite,* because 
common unprejudiced reason suggests 
them to all men ; or, in other words, be- 
cause they are irrefragably true. They 
must, howxver, be borne constantly in 
mind, and the conclusions from them, 
if legitimate, must be allowed ; one of 
the greatest difficulties in argvmient upon 
political subjects being, that although 
general principles are easily admitted, 
the necessary conclusions are resisted. 
The disqualifications attached to Popery 
are, at the present day, attempted to be 
justified on other grounds. It is asserted, 
that this religion is a badge not more of 
rehgious, than of political tenets; that 

* Though it is to be hoped that these general prin- 
ciples are now trite, it must be remarked, that a cen- 
tury ago they were far otherwise. The whole of Locke's 
Letters on Toleration, and his Treatise on Government, 
are occupied in die proof of them. 



11 

some of its doctrines are at variance not 
^nl\^ with speculative truth, but with 
common moraUtj. Again, the Cathohcs 
are supposed to be always liable to fo? 
reign influence ; to be under a temporal 
as well as spiritual subordination to the 
head of their church ; and to profess an 
obedience to him incompatible with their 
duty as subjects to an}^ particular state, 

In support of these assertions, the de- 
crees of councils, the bulls of Popes, 
and the events of English historj^ in 
which Catholics have borne a part, are 
properly referred to. Upon a correct 
estimate of these subjects do the merits 
of the Catholic Question wholly turn. If, 
from a review of them, it shall appear, 
that to be a good Catholic, a man must 
be a bad subject, as some represent, then 
is his religion not merely speculatively 
erroneous, but pohtically dangerous ; and 
the restraints imposed upon him can cer- 
tainly be justified. Still their expediency 

c 2 



is another, and by no means a subordi- 
nate question. To have no choice but 
between dangers, is not an uncommon 
situation for a legislator to be placed in ; 
and should the security for fidelity to the 
constitution which a Catholic can give 
be imperfect, yet, if the danger arising 
from his admission to all its privileges is 
less than that from his exclusion, though 
he may have no right to demand, it may 
be highly expedient to grant what he 
seeks. And this expediency is greatly 
increased, if the dangers to the state are 
only such, as by confining our attention 
to insulated points of his religion, we 
may be led to anticipate. These ought 
justly to be rated very low. According 
to such anticipations, the ecclesiastical 
polity of Scotland might be thought to 
disqualify those who adhere to it from 
being trust-worthy citizens of a limited 
monarchy. Every presumption is against 
them ; the purely democratical frame of 
their church-government; their refusing 



13 



to the crown not only any supremacy^ 
but any right of interference, has been 
and might still be urged ; the wisdom of 
our ancestors might be called in aid, who 
for centuries considered " no bishop no 
king'^ as an apophthegm incontestably 
true. Experience has taught what value 
is to be placed upon such conclusions. 

I have seen,"" says my Lord Gren- 
ville,^ 6i every one of the offices of go- 

^ Debate on the Catholic Question, 1805, Cobbett's 
Pari. Deb. p. 669. The whole subject is here dis- 
cussed in the two houses in a manner the most masterly. 
Of those who are influenced by names, I ask, can claims 
be dangerous to the state which are espoused by Mr. 
Fox, Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Mr. Windham, Mr. 
Grattan, Doctor Lawrence, &c. &c. To the authority 
of such men, whom I am sure I dare not presume to 
praise, let me add that of one greater than all — that of 
Burke. The wisdom of this great man has been dis- 
torted by partial extracts, and because the subject of his 
first letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe was a partial repeal 
of the Irish laws, he has been held up as an enemy to 
repeal in its full extent. I must refer the reader to his 
letter to Wm. Smith, Esq. and his second letter to Sir 
H. Langrishe, vol. ix. pp. 397 and 410, &c. where he 
will see his sentiments upon the whole question. 



14 



vernment filled bj persons who may be 
presumed to have had a Presbyterian 
education. I have seen your predecessor 
on the woolsack, the Chief Justices of 
the King's Bench and Common Pleas, 
the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, a 
Master of the Rolls, the President of the 
Council, besides generals and admirals, 
all of whom have been Presbyterians, 
and yet have filled their offices with ad- 
vantage to the countr3\ I have seen 
every one of these offices so filled, and 
yet I have never observed, on the part 
of the persons filling them, the least dis- 
position to change the form of the exist- 
ing government/' The very essence of 
political wisdom is to deal with men, not 
according to what they have been, or 
even what they now profess to be, but 
according to what in effect they really 
are. To rake into obnoxious articles of 
creeds; to imagine that principles of faith 
are under all circumstances principles of 
action; to overlook that some may be 



15 



counteracted by other principles; and 
that all are influenced by motives of se- 
curity, interest, honour, gratitude, cha- 
rity; to contend that doctrines which, 
when combined with particular causes, 
have in one aoe been followed bv certain 
effects, may not in another, when the 
same causes have ceased, or other causes 
have begun to operate, be wholly inac- 
tive, or produce contrary effects ; all 
this, though it may suit the purposes of 
a wilful and determined antagonist, is 
not the line of conduct which a con- 
scientious and intelligent legislator w^ill 
pursue- No error has been more fatal 
to the repose of society, than the undue 
stress which statesmen, wdien they have 
abandoned their province, and dogma- 
tized upon religion, have laid upon the 
consequences likely to result from the 
faith of large bodies of men. It is high 
time for all to admit that men will rea- 
dily abstain from carrying principles into 
action, though they are with the utmost 



16 



difficulty prevailed upon to surrender 
the principles themselves. They cling 
to them, not in proportion to their in- 
dividual excellence, but as parts of a 
system of belief, endeared to them by 
habit, and its numberless associations. 
They resist the surrender of principles, 
because if they begin, they know not 
where to stop ; because^ in general, they 
have not sufficiently considered what can 
be advanced in their defence; because 
they question the authority by which 
such surrender is required. 

But, if from such an enquiry as we 
propose to institute into the conduct 
past and present, and the doctrines of 
British Catholics, the result should be, 
that a man may be both a good Catholic 
and a good subject, then are his claims 
to be placed on a level with his fellow- 
subjects, founded in the strictest right. 
I am aware that this may seem to have 
been denied by a great authority. Mr. 



17 



Pitt, who acknowledged the civil merits 
of the Catholics, is reported* to have said, 
" That he admitted no claim whatever 
as to right/' and that " it was only from 
expediency and for conciliation, that the 
measure could be a moment justified in 
his opinion/' Mr. Pitt adds, " he (Mr. 
Fox) seems to consider that there is only 
a shade of difference between the expe- 
diency and the right ; whereas my view 
of the difference is fundamental : I con- 
sider right as independent of circum- 
stances. With regard to the admission 
of Catholics to franchises, to the elec- 
tive franchise, or to any of those posts 
and offices which have been alluded to, 
I view all these points as distinctions to 
be given, not for the sake of the person 
who is to possess them, but for the sake 
of the public, for whose benefit they 
were created, and for whose advantage 
they are to be exercised/' I suppose 

* Cobbett's Pari. Deb, vol. iv, p. 10i4. 
D 



18 



that no one, in theory at least, will deny, 
that the object for which posts and 
offices are created, is here correctly stat- 
ed. But granting this, is there any in- 
consistency inmamtaining, that admissi- 
bility to them is a right in individuals? 
Undoubtedly Mr. Pitt was at liberty to 
define right as independent of circum- 
stances; because, as Paley observes, 
truth cannot be offended by a definition, 
though propriety may. But where would 
he have found instances of such rights ? 
political rights, of which Mr. Fox had 
been speaking, so far from being inde- 
pendent of circumstances, are the crea- 
tures of them ; and the general good, 
the immutable end, to which govern- 
ment and legislation are means, aiding 
and assisting by their very mutability, 
and by adapting themselves to combina- 
tions of circumstances, infinite and ever 
varying, is that which creates and ab- 
rogates, limits and suspends, the rights 
of men in society. Exactly that degree 



19 



of restraint upon their wills and actions, 
which the general good requires, it is 
the allowed duty of leoislation to im- 
pose. From their tendency to promote 
the general good, all laws derive their 
onl}^ sanction ; and to this tes^t the in-, 
stitution of property, the distinctions of 
rank ; every thing, in short, most vene- 
rated, can and must be applied. There 
is no right so imprescriptible as this^ 
that in cases where the general good 
does not require coercion, the actions of 
all men should be unfettered, and their 
pursuit of happiness uncontrouled. This 
is a right superior to all government, to 
w^hich government owes its own exist- 
ence, and is indeed nothing less than 
the will of God, written upon his Vvorks. 
If this be so, the claims of any body of 
men, for the repeal of laws affecting 
them exclusively, grounded upon such 
proof as the case admits of, that the 
general good does not require their con- 
tinuance, are necessarily claims of right. 

D 2 



20 



Take the elective franchise, the lowest 
privilege of a British subject. It is a 
right which cannot exist in a state of 
nature, but is created by our submission 
to government : and though, when creat- 
ed, it may appear universal ; yet as such 
a right, if common to all, would be 
available to none, the general good re- 
quires some qualification in those who 
exercise it ; and our constitution has se- 
lected that of property, the best of any 
in many respects. It has adopted the 
same in the case of the elected, as vrell 
as electors. With respect to posts and 
offices, as this qualification v:ould be 
too extensive, the constitution has aban- 
doned it, and left them at the disposal 
principally of the executive magistrate ; 
and in these, admissibility is the only 
right which all can claim. The general 
good sanctions such rights, and such an 
arrangement of them ; all acquiesce from 
a sense of the necessity of some limita- 
tions, and the propriety of those de- 
vised. But, an English Catholic, b}'' 



21 



the mere profession of his religion, is 
debarred the exercise of the elective 
franchise, and is rendered ineligible to 
posts and offices. Upon the supposition 
that it is not hostile to the general good, 
being in possession of property, the only 
qualification known to the law, he has 
a right to demand the elective franchise, 
and the franchise of representation ; 
being in possession of property , or the 
other requisites, he has a right to de- 
mand eligibility to posts and offices. Not 
that because there is a right to demand 
on the one side, there is not expediency 
in ojrantino; on the other. On the con- 
trary, there is expediency in that high- 
est possible degree, under which it 
changes its name, and becomes duty. 
It is no longer the purblind view we 
take of what is for our good, but con- 
formity with the will of Him w^ho gave 
us our rights, vrith our being, and whose 
will it IS, because it is for the happiness 
of his creatures. 



22 



I have been the more anxious to dis- 
tinguish between right and expediency, 
and to confine the latter to cases where 
there is no right to demand ; but policy 
in granting, from a prudential consider- 
ation of collateral and extrinsic reasons, 
because the distinction lies at the root of 
the whole discussion, and appears to me 
of very great consequence in treating of 
the Catholic Claims, Many an honest 
man, who v/ould shrink from the idea of 
being party to an act of gross injustice,: 
and of withholding from any description 
of his fellow-subjects that which may be 
as much their right as the property they 
possess, reconciles easily to himself an 
opposition to the Catholics, when he 
imagines that only expediency can be 
pleaded in their favour. Amongst such 
men there is uniformly one overwhelm- 
ing notion of expediency, which consists 
in maintaining laws not for their useful- 
ness, but tlieir antiquity. Thc}^ consider 
themselves at liberty to rest satisfied with 



23 



their own views of expediences however 
short-sighted and limited they maybe; 
confident that whether they rc^ject or 
admit these claims, no cruelty can be 
committed, they resist enquirj^; or if 
they submit to it, stand justified in their 
opposition, if dangers the most shadowy 
can be suggested, as consequences the 
most improbable of any change of po- 
licy. 

But, every one capable of judging, 
and willing to exercise an impartial 
judgment, should, if possible, be made 
to fed, that the question of the Catholic 
Claims is one which vitally aftects the 
happiness of some millions, and the jus- 
tice of many more. Here is a mass of 
evil at our very doors ; here is, to my 
apprehension and conviction, in this en- 
liohtened ao;e and kinoxlom our com> 
mon Christianitv and constitution, dis- 
honoured by being still made, in a cow- 
siderable degree, instruu)e]its of o]>prcs- 



24 



sion. As a candid and extensive inves- 
tigation is all that the Catholics need 
require ; and as, it is to be hoped, there 
would appear a sufficient inducement to 
undertake it, if the Catholic Question 
were considered, what in truth it is, in- 
calculably the most important question 
which can now occupy the attention of 
the legislature ; it is impossible to pass 
by without notice, a certain species of 
fashionable charity which stands some- 
what in the way, and prevails in some 
men, if not to the exclusion, yet to the 
depreciation of any other. I mean, a 
sort of long-sighted commiseration of 
the unknown rather than the known ; of 
strangers in preference to fellow-coun- 
trymen; which perpetually carries our 
thoughts and our humanity beyond the 
equator; looks out for some barbarous 
African, or semi-barbarous Gentoo ; im- 
mediately falls to subscribing, and hur- 
rying off bibles and missionaries; broods 
over schemes of melioration, which, un- 



25 



less digested and executed with the most 
consummate prudence, may not impro- 
bably end in tormenting those whom 
they are designed to benefit. A benevo- 
lent disposition, upon whatever objects 
exercised, is abstractedly entitled to re- 
spect ; I do not blame this, but may be 
allowed to express my surprise, how 
those who govern themselves by a scale 
of duty, can find such constant leisure 
to exercise it. And the misfortune is, that 
charity of this description glows most 
fiercely where it may be fruitless, and is 
cold where it could not hvt be profit- 
able ; and I should not liave remarked 
upon it, if they who thus exhaust them- 
selves upon aliens, were not the first to 
play fast and loose with the Catholics, 
the readiest in starting and adopting 
diflSculties, the loudest in requiring im- 
possible or unwarrantable securities. I 
cannot sufficiently recommend to all 
such, the observations of our great phi- 
losophical statesman. " To transfer hu* 

E 



26 



manity from its natural basis, our legi- 
timate and home-bred connexions ; to 
lose all feeling for those who have grown 
up by our sides, in our eyes, the benefits 
of whose cares and labours we have par- 
taken from our birth, and meretriciously 
to hunt abroad after foreign affections, 
is such a disarrangement of the whole 
system of our duties, that I do not 
know, whether benevolence so displaced 
is not the same as destroyed, or what 
effect bigotry could have produced that 
is more fatal to society/'^ 

In selecting right as the foundation 
upon which it is my intention to argue 
the Catholic Question, I have neither 
overlooked, nor been deterved by the 
absurdity of those, who, upon every 
claim of right, bristle up their backs in 
shew of resistance; and require in every 
petitioner the prostration of a slave, ra- 

* Tracts on the Popery Laws, Burke, vol. ix. p, 360. 



27 

ther than the dignity of a freeman. The 
argument is not addressed to them, but 
to those only who are lovers of justice 
and of their kind, and who, if a right is 
substantiated in any class of men, feel 
an alacrity in admitting it, from a sens^ 
of pleasure in the performance of a 
duty. 

As might be expected, in a question 
of such magnitude, and so repeatedly 
canvassed, it is embarrassed by an end- 
less variety of expressions, either un- 
meaning, or untrue in the sense intended 
to be conveyed. . Amongst these I will 
only mention the two following; that the 
constitution is fundamentally Protestant, 
and that the established church is an 
integral part of the constitution. Fun- 
damentally Protestant! here are two no- 
ble words taken singly, but what we are 
to understand b}^ them joined together, 
and applied to the constitution, I pro- 
fess myself, after taking some trouble, 

E 2 



28 



at a loss to discover. Let us suppose 
that on any given night, the people of 
these kingdoms, including adherents of 
every religious persuasion, were by the 
intervention of a miracle converted all 
to an uniformity of belief ; and that we 
all awoke in the morning staunch Ca- 
tholics, or what is equally possible, 
staunch Jews, and in expectation of a 
Messiah. Should we be without any 
rule of civil conduct, or would the con- 
stitution be impaired in any tittle? Or 
is the constitution fundamentally Pro- 
testant, because the authors of some of 
its provisions were such ? If the habeas 
corpus act be fundamentally Protestant 
for this reason, then is magna charta for 
the same fundamentally Catholic, and 
trial by jury fundamentally pagan, be- 
cause traced by some to Woden, the 
god and legislator of the Saxons. But 
this is absurd ; and the constitution is 
nothing but a collection of civil rules, 
written or unwritten, and of immemorial 



29 



usages; to the full benefit of which all, 
who are enabled and incHned to pay 
that obedience which is necessary for its 
support, are entitled. 

With respect to the other mode of ex-- 
pression, it originates in the use of an 
ambiguous and hackneyed phrase of 
" constitution in church and state/' The 
reasoning applied to the last will suffi- 
ciently convince us that this phrase re- 
solves itself into the constitution of the 
state, and the constitution of the church ; 
each distinct, yet not independent of 
the other. On the degree of connexion 
which ought to subsist between them, I 
shall have occasion so often to remark, 
that I will not here abuse the reader's 
patience. 

I propose, therefore, as succinctly as 
the subject will admit, to take an his- 
torical view of the principal penal sta- 
tutes enacted against the Catholics, and 



30 



of the circumstances under which the 
nation was placed at the times of pass- 
ing them : to examine whether their in- 
trinsic merit, or those circumstances jus- 
tified their origin, and sanctions their 
continuance. In the events of Enghsh 
history, in which CathoHcs have been 
concerned, I shall endeavour to ascribe 
to their religion its fair share, and no 
more. I shall remark, in the course of 
such inquiry, the changes which time 
or accident may haA^e produced on many 
points to which these laws have refer- 
ence. Having subjoined, from authentic 
sources, testimonials of the conduct and 
doctrines of the Catholics of the present 
day, I shall hope to have established a 
right in them to a repeal of every civil 
disability under which they labour. 



31 



CHAP. II. 

He7iri/ VIII.— Elizabeth. 

It is notorious, that the Reformation, 
though aided in its progress by causes 
which had their operation in this coun- 
try in common with the rest of Europe, 
was immediately brought about by the 
rupture between Henry VIII . and Cle- 
ment VII. on the subject of the king's 
divorce from Catherine of Arragon. But, 
during Henry's life, the separation from 
the church of Rome consisted, not so 
much in any departure from its doctrine, 
as in depriving it of the revenue which 
it had enjoj^ed, and the dominion which 
it had exercised within the kingdom. 
Such was the abject submission of the 
people to the arbitrary will of their so- 
vereign, and such the capriciousness of 
that will, that at Henry's death it is 



32 



clifficelt to say what was the religion of 
the priDce, or the English nation* 

One ver}^ important consequence im- 
iiiediately followed the breach with 
Rome. The ecclesiastical powers of dis- 
cipline and jurisdiction over consciences 
which had been exerted by the Popes, 
were immediately annexed to the crown 
of England. The 26 Hen. VIII. c. 1. 
has for its title, The King^s Grace to 
be anthorized Supreme Head.''' It re- 
cites in the preamble^ Albeit the King^s 
Majesty, justl}^ and rightfully, is and 
ought to be the supreme head of the 
church of England, and so is recognised 
by the clergy of this realm in their con- 
vocations ; yet, nevertheless, for corro- 
boration and confirmation thereof, and 
for increase of virtue in Christ's religion 
within this realm of England, and to 
repress and extirp all errors^ heresies^ and 
other enormities and abuses heretofore used 
in the same. Be it,"' &c. It then enacts, 



33 



that there shall be united to the imperial 
crown of this realm, " All honours, dig- 
nities, pre-eminencies, jm^isdictions, pri- 
vileges, authorities, immunities, profits, 
and commodities, to the said dignity of 
supreme head of the same church be- 
longing and confirms to the king and 
his heirs, " full power and authority, 
from time to time, to visit, repress, re- 
dress, &c. all such errors, heresies, abuses, 
offences, contempts, and enormities, 
whatsoever they be, which by any man- 
ner, spiritual authority, or jurisdiction, 
ought, or lawfully may, be redressed, 
&c. most to the pleasure of Almighty 
God, the increase of virtue in Christ's 
religion, and for the conservation of the 
peace, unity, and tranquillity, of the 
realm/'^* 

* By the 37 Hen. VIII. c. 17. The parliament 
again, in most humble wise," expressly admit that the 
king was, and always had been, by the word of God, 
supreme head on earth of the church of England, and 



34 



The denial of the supremacy was trea- 
son ; and, for this new offence, many 
priors and ecclesiastics, together with 
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir 
Thomas More, lost their lives. 

By this act, an effectual surrender 
was made of the religious liberties of 
the nation ; and an absolute power of 
legislation, in matters of faith, was vest- 
ed in the crown. And when, by a sub- 
sequent act, ^ it was declared, that the 
king's proclamation should have the 
force of statutes, the existence of the 
parliament, for all purposes of controul, 
was utterly insignificant; and it was 
only retained as a convenient and will- 
ing instrument of the king's despotic 
authority. 



had full power to correct, punish, and repress, all man- 
ner of heresies, errors, vices, sins, abuses, idolatries, hy- 
pocrisies, and superstitions, growing within the same. 

^ 31 Hen. VIII. c. 8. 



35 



By virtue of the supremacy, the king 
appointed a commission of certain ec- 
clesiastics, and gave them in charge to 
choose a rehgion for the nation.'^ And 
before any progress had been made, the 
parhament, in 1541, had kindly ratified 
all the tenets which these divines should 
thereafter establish, with the king's con- 
sent. 

Surely the powers which this act con- 
veyed, and which, independently of the 
act^ both king and parliament consider- 
ed inherent in him, were monstrous and 
absurd. What was it but recognising 
in the sovereign that infallibility which 
Protestants so much ridicule, when 
claimed by the Popes, and which is ac- 
knowledged by the Romish church to 
reside only in the decrees of a general 
council? One necessary effect which 
proved fatal to the repose of the nation ^ 



Hume, vol. iv. p. £22. 
F 2 



36 



and to the interests of true religion, was 
to connect inseparably the ideas of heresy 
and rebeUion ; and to fortify an opinion, 
akeady too deeply rooted, that the ma- 
gistrate can be intrusted with power to 
punish a dissent from his faith, equally 
with an attack upon his civil authority. 

The elFects of such a power ought 
narrowly to be watched. If our prin- 
ciples are correct, matters of faith are 
not the subject of legislation, even w^hen 
a nation, is most adequately represented 
in the legislative bod3\ Still less, then, 
can the conscience of a people be bound 
and delivered over to the absolute domi- 
nion of an individual. 

When such were the ideas entertained 
of the powers of the magistrate, one is 
not surprised to find the parliament, in 
the name of the king's " most humble 
and obedient subjects,'' returning thanks 
for the most godlie pain and travell of 



37 



his majesty, in most prudently ponder- 
ing and considering'' the law of the six 
articles ; by the first of which, a denial 
of the real presence subjected the of- 
fender to death by fire, and to the same 
forfeiture as in cases of treason, and ad- 
mitted not the privilege of abjuring. 
^' An unheard-of severity/' says Hume, 
" and unknown to the inquisition it- 
self." 

The following abstract of 34 & 35 
Hen. VHI. c. 1. will prove what little 
reason the nation had to rejoice in its 
emancipation from the spiritual tyranny 
of the church of Rome. It Avas enacted, 
that " recourse should be had to the 
Catholic and apostolic church for the 
decision of controversies ; and, therefore, 
all books of the Old and New^ Testa- 
ment in English, being of Tindal's false 
translation, or comprising an}^ matter of 
Christian religion, articles of the faith, 
or holy scripture, contrary to the doc- 



38 



trine set forth si thence A. D. 1540,* or 
to be set forth bj the king, should be 
abohshed. No person should retain any 
English books or writings against the 
holy and blessed sacrament of the altar, 
or other books abolished by the king's 
proclamation. There were to be no 
preambles or annotations in Bibles or 
New Testaments in English. The Bible 
was not to be read in English in any 
church. No women, or artificers, ap- 
prentices, journeymen, servingmen of the 
degree of yeomen or under, husband- 
men, nor labourers, might read the New 
Testament in English. Nothing was to 
be taught or maintained contrary to the 
king's instructions. And if any spiritual 
person preached or maintained any thing 
contrary to the king's instructions made 
or to be made, and should be thereof 
convict, he was for his first offence to 

^ Tliis alludes to the king's two books of the Instil 
tution and Erudition of a Christian Man. 



39 



recant; for his second to abjure, and 
bear a faggot ; and for his third to be 
adjudged an heretic, and be burned, and 
lose all his goods and chattels/' 



Edward VI. 

No sooner was the tyrannical, but 
vigorous hand, of Henry withdrawn from^ 
the government, than the religious sects, 
into which the nation was divided, threat- 
ened to break out into the most furious 
action. The alternate success which his 
wayward policy procured to the parti- 
zans of the old and new religion, exas- 
perated both, without extinguishing the 
hopes or fears of either. The desire to 
preserve the plunder which they had ac- 
quired, combining with the zeal in- 
spired by a new faith on the one hand ; 
and the wish for revenge, with the hope 
of recovering a lost ascendancy, on the 
other, stimulated the exertions of all. 



40 



and had a tendency to liiiiTj them into 
the most dangerous excesses. An ex- 
tended council of regency^ comprised of 
the sixteen executors, to v» hom the late 
king by will had, during the minority of 
his son Edward, entrusted the supreme 
authority, was ill calculated to meet the 
exigencies of the times. The whole na- 
tion, therefore, had great reason to re- 
joice, when the first act in the execution 
of their trust was to devolve the whole 
power upon one of their own body, un- 
der the name of Protector ; and more 
especially had the friends of the reform- 
ation cause of congratulation, when the 
choice fell upon the Earl of Hertford. 
He was maternal uncle to the young 
king, and, consequently, not within the 
line of succession : he w^as a man of pro« 
bity and experience, and known to be 
favourably inclined to the new tenets. 
Calling Cranmer to his counsels, he pro- 
secuted the difficult work of displacing 
an old, and establishing a new system of 



41 

faith, by measures which, if due allow- 
ance be made for the general intolerance 
of his age, may be pronounced judi- 
cious, mild, and moderate. I shall not 
have a fairer opportunity than the pre- 
sent to. remark, wdiat an inestimable ad- 
vantage it has proved to the church of 
England, that at the present period, 
^vhen its doctrines, rites, and ceremonies 
were established, and at the commence- 
ment of Elizabeth's reign, when they 
were restored, the government at each 
period was lodged w^ith statesmen qua- 
lified to call forth its powers with tem- 
perance and wisdom ; whereas the mea 
sures of the Catholics have been exposed 
to the contrary disadvantage. Under 
Mary, and James II. their proceedings 
were dictated, in the first instance, by 
a fury incapable of controul, an im- 
becillity which defied instruction, and 
a bigotry which insured its own de- 
feat. 



G 



42 



The protector Somerset^ relying upon 
the power given in the last reign to pro- 
clamations, suspended the bishops from 
the exercise of their authority, and ap- 
pointed a general visitation to be made 
throughout the kingdom. All images, 
which had not been abused to idolatry, 
were to be retained ; the people were 
instructed not to despise such ceremonies 
as were not abrogated, but only to be- 
^ ware of particular superstitions. The 
abuse of preaching was corrected, and 
twelve homilies wxre published, which 
the clergy were enjoined to read to the 
people. 

One of the chief objections urged by 
Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, to 
the new^ homilies, was, that they defined, 

^ After the appointment of a protector, the executors 
proceeded to fulfil the desires of the late king, expressed 
in his will in favour of themselves, and to make new 
creations of nobility ; in consequence, the Earl of 
Hertford was created Duke of Somersets 



43 



with the most metaphysical precision, 
the doctrines of grace and justification 
by faith; points, he thought, which it 
was superfluous for any man to know 
exactly, and which far exceeded the 
comprehension of the vulgar. Fox, the 
martyrologist, calls Gardiner, on ac- 
count of this opinion, " an insensible 
ass, and one who had no feeling of God's 
spirit in the matter of justification/'* 

But, though the praise of temperance, 
and wisdom, and w^e may add, general 
humanity, may be ascribed to Somerset 
and Cranmer, we are not to imagine 
that they acknowledged, much less that 
they were guided, by the principles of 
toleration. By permitting the use of the 
scriptures to the people in their native 
tongue, they prepared and ushered in 
the dawn of religious freedom ; but it is 
too much to expect that they should so 



^ Hume, vol. iv. 291- 
G 2 



44 



far outstep their generation, as to stand 
in the noon-day. A committee of di- 
vines having compiled a hturgV) it was 
confirmed by act of parhament; and if 
the divided state of the nation be con- 
sidered , the penalties attached to non- 
conformity will prove, how little latitude 
of dissent the ruling powers were dis- 
posed to allow to others, while they 
claimed the greatest for themselves. The 
preamble of the 2 & 3 Edw. VI. c. 1. 
informs us, that there had existed dif- 
ferent forms of prayer within the realm, 
and that the king had been pleased to 
bear Avith the weakness and frailty of the 
people in this behalf ; and had not only 
abstained from punishment of those who 
had offended in this respect, but had ap- 
pointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and other discreet bishops and learned 
men, to ponder the premises ; and that, 
by the aid of the Holy Ghost, the above 
persons had agreed upon a meet order 
and form of common prayer. Those of 



45 



the clergy, who should refuse to use, it, 
were for the first offence to suffer im- 
prisonment for six months, and forfeit a 
year's profits of such one of their bene- 
fices as the king should appoint : for the 
second offence they were to be imprison- 
ed for a year, and to be deprived ipso 
facto of all their spiritual promotions: 
for the third, they were to be imprisoned 
for life. Neale asserts, that this service- 
book w^as not laid before any convoca- 
tion, and that so far from its being com- 
posed by uniform agreement, four bi- 
shops employed in drawing it up pro- 
tested against it.^ 

Cranmer had conformed outw^ardly to 
all the varying sentiments of the late 
king upon religion. He had argued 
against Lambert, and acquiesced in the 
burning of him and Anne Askew for 
that very denial of the real presence, for 
which he himself afterwards suffered. 

* Neale, Hist. Pur. Abr. vol. i. p. 33. 



46 



When invested with authority under Ed- 
ward, he bore hard upon the Cathohcs, 
stretching the law to keep their most 
active leaders in prison ; and having 
adopted a standard of orthodoxy, was 
unfortunately so far transported from 
the humanity natural to him, as to im- 
brue his hands in the blood of those who 
rejected it. A commission had been 
granted to the primate and others, to 
examine after all anabaptists, heretics, 
and contemners of the book of common 
prayer ; and if the commissioners could 
not reclaim them, they were enjoined to 
deliver them over to the secular power. 
Many were examined, some of whom 
abjured, and one had carried a faggot ; 
but, " there was another of these,'' says 
Burnet, " extreme obstinate/' This was 
a woman called Joan Bocher, or Joan 
of Kent. She maintained, " that Christ 
was not truly incarnate of the Virgin, 
whose flesh being sinful, he could take 
none of it; but the word by the con- 



47 



sent of the inward man in the Virgin, 
took fxcsh of her/' Deprived as we are 
of Joan's own explanation, it seems 
difficult to say whether this doctrine is 
orthodox, or heretical. It is merely in- 
comprehensible. Cranmer, however, saw 
too clearly its enormity. And when the 
humane voung monarch, with tears in 
his eyes, resisted his importunity, and 
refused to doom her to destruction on 
account of it, Cranmer enforced the ne- 
cessity of punishment; he argued from 
the practice of the Jewish church in 
stoning blasphemers ; he pointed out the 
difference between errors in other points 
of divinity, and such as had a reference 
to the apostle's creed. He told the king 
that the latter were impieties against 
God, which the prince, as God's deputy, 
w^as bound to repress. Edward deferred 
to his learning, and this poor creature, 
wdio, as Neale truly observes, was more 
fit for Bedlam than the stake, expiated 
her errors in the flames. 



48 



I find this account succeeded bv an- 
other, in the histoiy of th^Ileformation, 
of a Dutchman, one Van Pare, or Van 
Paris. " Of this Pare," Burnet tells us, 
"I find a Popish writer saying that he 
was a man of a wonderful strict life, that 
he used not to eat above once in two 
days, and before he did eat would lie 
sometime in his devotion prostrate on 
the ground/' He was convicted of Arian- 
ism, in holding that God the Father was 
only God, and that Christ w^as not ver}^ 
God ; and being brought to execution, 
kissed the stake and faggots that wxre 
about to consume him. 

If we attend to the ecclesiastical af- 
fairs of Scotland during this period, we 
shall find the Reformation carried on 
under the guidance of Knox, the Apostle 
of the North, as he is somewhere term- 
ed, in that strain of furv and savage 
violence by which, in all its stages, it 
was so eminently distinguished. Car- 



49 



dinal Beaton burns Wishart for heresy ; 
Melvil, the reformer, murders Beaton in 
return ; and Knox, the divine, describes 
the transaction as the " godly fact and 
words of James Melvil/' In the pro- 
gress of the Reformation, in that coun- 
try, which enjoyed not for some time 
the advantage of a stable government, 
and where the ecclesiastical soon gained 
the ascendancy over the civil power, 
we shall discover, if I mistake not, in- 
stances of bigotry not less atrocious, 
and of interference by the priesthood 
with the civil power, much more dan- 
gerous, than any that can be selected 
from our history, when the nation was 
in the most abject submission to the see 
of Rome. 

It is unnecessary and unwise to con- 
ceal or extenuate these errors of our 
first reformers. Burnet, in his account 
of the proceedings against Joan Bocher, 
displays a fruitless anxiety for the re- 

H 



50 



putation of Cranmer. He informs us, 
that the commissioners took much pains 
about her, and had many conferences 
with her ; but she was so extravagantly 
conceited of her own notions, that she 
rejected all they said with scorn. As if 
a person, who had bewildered herself 
with such notions, was accessible to rea- 
son and argument ! The immediate con- 
sequence of such principles of persecu- 
tion was, that they furnished the Catho- 
lics, in the next reign, with ground of 
excuse and recrimination. It was said, 
that men of harmless lives might be put 
to death for heresy, by the confession of 
the^ reformers themselves. In all the 
books published in Queen Marj^'s reign, 
justifj'ing her severities against Protes- 
tants, these instances were constantly 
produced ; and when Cranmer himself 
was brought to the stake, they called 
it a just retaliation.* 



* Neal, Abr. vol. i. p. SS. 



51 

That part of the nationj which did 
not take its rehgion upon trust, was now 
earnestl}^ occupied in settling its faith by 
disputation. Instead of commencing 
their researches with the moral part of 
the Christian scheme^ the Reformers^ un- 
dervaluing this, boldly plunged into the 
discussion of its mysteries; and, in a 
period of society when the qualifications 
for such sublime enquiries were rare, en- 
tered upon the widest field that was ever 
exposed to human speculation. Far from 
imbibing from the scriptures a spirit of 
charity and union, they sought only for 
grounds of separation; and drew up 
articles and professions of faith compre- 
hending the points essential to salvation. 
Each society of Christians claimed to be 
exclusively in possession of truth ; each 
consigned to everlasting perdition those 
w^ho differed in opinion.^ The more in- 

^ Church of England, in the 18th article, confines 
salvation to the Christian, and in the Athanasian creed 
to those who beheve it. " This is the Catholic faith, 

H 2 



52 



capable any one was of forming a ra- 
tional judgment, the more fierce was he 
in the maintenance of his opinions ; the 
more anxious to impose them upon 
others by force ; the more ready to give 
the only proof of conviction in his power 
by suffering for them himself. Tolera- 
tion was neither offered by one party, 
nor would have been accepted by the 
other; and the spirit of persecution is 
the characteristic, not as some would 
have us believe, of a particular religion, 
but of a particular age ; and results uni- 
formly from defective morality, and im- 
perfect civilization. 



which, except a man beheve faithfully, he cannot be 
saved." 

" Extra ecclesiae gremium nulla est speranda pecca- 
torum remissio nec ulla salus." Calvin, 1. 4. Instit, 
c. 1. 

" Out of the church there is neither life nor everlast- 
ing happiness." Scotch profession of Faith, 1568. 

Out of the church there is nothing but death and 
damnation." Catechism of Hugonots, 



53 



Mary. 

It can never be the interest of any 
real friend of religion^ to palliate the 
enormities which have been committed 
under its name, or to rescue the authors 
of them from the execrations they de- 
serve. The short and calamitous reign 
of Mary may well be viewed by Ca- 
tholic and Protestant with equal senti- 
ments of re2;ret. abhorrence, and indio- 
nation. If I do not instance examples 
of horrid cruelty and oppression, it is 
solely because they are so numerous, 
that selection is difficult, and because 
the activitv of Protestant writers has 
already made them familiar to every 
English reader. 

Mary was cursed by nature with a 
weak understanding, and a sullen, cruel, 
and revengeful heart. The recluse life 
which she had led, had not only ren- 



54 



dered her a prey to melancholj, but bj 
increasing her bigotry, and imparting 
the most contracted views of policy^ 
had totally disqualified her for the du- 
ties of a sovereign. She ascribed, and 
with great justice, to the new tenets, all 
the misfortunes of herself and family. 
She had been obliged more than once to 
apply to her relation, Charles V. and 
solicit his interference, that she might be 
permitted to enjoy in private the exer- 
cise of her religion. She even attempt- 
ed to make her escape to him ; and it 
was not till hostilities were threatened, 
that the violent measures which the Re- 
formers meditated against her were 
abandoned. She came to the head of a 
government absolute in practice at least, 
if not in form ; and, from the repeated 
changes which had lately occurred, she 
had some reason to expect that the na- 
tion would return to the religion of its 
ancestors, whenever their sovereign^'s pre- 
dilection for it should be manifested. 



55 



She had the concurrent testimony of all, 
even the reformed churches, that the 
power with which she was invested, 
might with propriety be exerted in the 
vigorous suppression of heresy and 
schism. We have before shewn Cran- 
mer's practice on this subject. In an- 
other country, Calvin, a great luminary 
of a new church, had considered the 
errors of Servetus so heinous, that they 
could be expiated only by a cruel death ; 
and this barbarity had received the 
sanction and applause of Beza and Me- 
lancthon, two of the most humane and 
enlightened advocates of reformed reli- 
gion. 

It is infinitely to be lamented, that at 
this particular juncture, the sceptre 
should have descended into hands, at 
all times incapable of wielding it to the 
advantage and happiness of the nation. 
Carrying in our minds the erroneous 
principles of rehgion and government, 



56 



b}^ which both parties were equally ac- 
tuated, let us imagine what would have 
been the probable consequence, had 
Mary succeeded immediately to her fa- 
ther Henry, and had she and her coad- 
jutors, Gardiner and Bonner, been Pro- 
testants ; and, on the other hand, had 
Edward, Cranmer, and the protector 
Somerset, been Catholics, and svicceeded 
Mary. In other words, let us suppose 
the order of succession, and the religion 
of the parties, to have been reversed. 
Is there not every reason to think, that 
the nature of events would have been 
reversed also ? Can we doubt that the 
same violence which now disgusts us, in 
her attempts to restore the Catholic, 
would still have signalized her endea- 
vours to establish the Protestant faith ? 
and that the stigma which some would 
cast upon the religion itself of Catholics, 
would then have been affixed to the 
doctrines of our early reformers of the 
church of England ? What, then, does 



57 



this prove, but the absurdity of ascrib- 
ing these enormities to any system of 
rehgion exclusively ; when they are, in 
some cases, sufficiently accounted for by 
the characters of persons? Mary, and 
her husband Philip, from the qualities 
of their minds, were able and inclined 
to fill ten kingdoms with misery and 
desolation. 

The conduct to be observed to their 
opponents in religion, was naturally a 
frequent subject of conference before 
the queen and council. Gardiner and 
Pole were the persons whom she chiefly 
trusted. Gardiner, like Wolsey, was an 
active and ambitious priest, whose faith 
sat but loosely upon him. When exa- 
mined by the council, in the late king's 
reign, he shewed every disposition to 
make his theology bend to his love of 
power ; and he refused to sign the arti- 
cles of subscription proposed to him, 
only because, from the exorbitancy of 

I 



58 



the demands, compliance on his part 
would have exposed him to contempt 
and insignificance. But, on the present 
occasion, this man recommended mea- 
sures of severity; and was influenced, 
not by his anxiety for the interests of 
his reUgion, but by the austerity of his 
temper, and his arbitrary notions of go- 
vernment, Pole, on the other hand, 
though devoted to his faith, was a man 
of mildness and humanity, and thought 
that the triumph of the Roman religion 
would be too dearly purchased at the 
price of the blood and suffering of his 
opponents. It is to be observed, how- 
ever, that Gardiner uniformly suggested 
cautious counsels, and it was not till 
after his death, that Philip and Mary 
adopting the profligate and infamous 
Bonner, carried their absurd and wicked 
schemes into effect. 

The queen, previously to the meeting 
of her second parhament, had dropped 



S9 



the title of supreme head of the church ; 
and, by the influence of Spanish gold, 
the intrigues of Gardiner, and other 
means, had procured a set of men, who, 
she had every reason to expect, would 
be obedient to all her wishes. They 
voted an address to Philip and Mary, 
praying their intercession w^ith the holy 
father, that the kingdom might again be 
placed under his spiritual protection* 
But it is worthy of remark, how even in 
the least enlightened and most supersti- 
tious times, the rehgion of large bodies 
of men is uniformly subservient to their 
temporal interests. The parliament w^as 
not brought to make these concessions 
to Rome, till, by repeated assurances 
from the Pope and queen, by a statute 
of their own, backed by an act of con- 
vocation, they had quieted their fears 
about the restitution of the property of 
which they had plundered the Romish 
ecclesiastics. The abbev and church 
lands were guaranteed to their present 

I 2 



60 

possessors, and the parliament, with the 
greatest indifference, again submitted 
themselves, and the nation, to the joke 
of the church of Rome. 

Elizabeth. 

The severities inflicted by Mary were 
followed by consequences which, how- 
ever they might disappoint her expecta- 
tions, a long and uniform experience 
has shewn to be the natural result of 
persecution. At her death, the body 
of the people, instead of being recon- 
ciled, were still farther alienated, than 
at her accession, from any communion 
with the see of Rome. Elizabeth, at 
her very entrance upon government, was 
surrounded with many of those dangers 
which, through a long reign, attended 
upon her. Amongst these, the choice 
of a national religion was the most im- 
mediate, and as so many others referred 



61 



themselves into this, it was also the 
most formidable. She seems to have 
been less under the influence of reli- 
gious bigotry than any of the great 
princes, her contemporaries ; and though 
from education, and perhaps conviction, 
disposed to favour the Reformation, yet, 
not to hptve regarded with abhorrence 
the rites and ceremonies of the Romish 
church. When she looked at home, she 
found her people divided into two re- 
ligious factions, nearly balanced in 
power, inflamed by mutual injuries to 
the highest pitch of animosity, and 
equally inclined to appeal to the sword 
as the proper weapon for deciding theo- 
logical controversy. Toleration would 
have exposed her to the suspicion of 
weakness and insincerity ; and, perhaps, 
have left her without that cordial sup- 
port from any portion of her subjects, 
which the critical nature of her foreign 
relations absolutely required. The great 
Catholic powers were then engaged in 



6§ 



an attempt to suppress the new opinions 
bj an extermination of those who ad- 
hered to them; and they afterwards 
reaped the bitter fruits of their policy, 
in the dismemberment and ruin which it 
brought upon their empires. Experience, 
from recent events, proved to Ehzabeth, 
that an alhance with Phihp IL of Spain, 
or the King of France, cemented by a 
common rehgion, could not be purchas- 
ed at a less price than with the loss of 
the affection of her subjects ; and what 
she valued as much, of her independ- 
ence as a sovereign. The loftiness of her 
spirit, her love of popularity, the jea- 
lousy of any participation in her power, 
all these motives sufficiently disinclined 
her to any system of policy which was 
likely to expose her to such dangers. 
But the peculiar circumstances of her 
birth made any reconciliation with the 
see of Rome impracticable. If the au- 
thority of the Pope were in any shape 
recognised, her legitimacy and title to 



63 



the crown were immediately called in 
question* A sentence had been solemnly 
pronounced by two Popes ^ against her 
mother's marriage ; and it was easily 
seen that this could not be recalled with- 
out rendering papal decrees for ever 
contemptible. The haughtiness and ex- 
travagant pretensions of the Roman 
pontiff, Paul IV. had already been fully 
manifested; and deprived her of all 
hopes of compromising these delicate 
points of discussion. Mary, Queen of 
Scots, as o'rand-daushter of Margaret, 
eldest sister of Henry VIII. was next 
heir of blood to the crown, if Eliza- 
beth's title had been invalidated. The 
degrading subserviency to the royal will, 
so repeatedly displayed by the parlia- 
ments of this period, had naturally 
weakened their authority ; and, in the 
eyes of many, particularly of the Ca- 
tholics, Mary's title by blood had the 



^ Clement VIL and Puul IIL 



64 



preference before the parliamentary title 
of Elizabeth. Mary's mother was a sis- 
ter of the house of Guise, and Mary 
herself was now married to the Dauphin 
Francis, son of Henry II. King of 
France. Unfortunately for Mary's fu- 
ture happiness, at the instigation of her 
father-in-law, she had already assumed 
the arms and stile of a Queen of Eng- 
land. A foundation was thus laid for 
that incurable jealousy, w^hich so many 
subsequent causes tended to exasperate ; 
it was obvious that, on the first oppor- 
tunity, the ambition of the Duke of 
Guise, and his brothers, Mary's uncles, 
w^ould prompt them to enforce upon the 
pretext of religion, a claim in their niece 
to the crown of Endand. 

This then was the combination of cir- 
cumstances which presented itself to 
Elizabeth, when she came to establish, 
by her will, a national religion. It must 
be allowed, that she w^as placed in a 



65 



situation perplexing and full of dangers* 
Having made her choice, the conduct 
pursued by her, will be best understood 
by a review of the penal statutes, passed 
during; her rei on. 

By the 1 Eliz. c. 1. the supremacy 
was restored to the crown, in as exten- 
sive terms as it had been originally con- 
ferred by the 26 Hen. VIII. c. 1. above 
recited. 

Upon the 18th section the court of 
ecclesiastical commission was grounded, 
to the proceedings of which we shall here- 
after have occasion to advert. 

The 19th section imposed the oath* of 
supremacy, not only upon all ecclesias- 
tical persons, and upon every lay and 
temporal officer, but also upon all who 
in any manner received her highnesses 
" fee or wages.'''' 

^ Repealed^ 1 W. & M. c. 8. sess. pri. 
K. 



66 



By the 5 Eliz. c. 1. § 2. If any one 

by teaching should hold, or stand withy 
or by speech, should advisedly attribute 
to the see of Rome the jurisdiction it 
had before exercised, he incurred the 
penalties of praemunire. The 5t sec- 
tion extended the description of persons 
who were to take the oath of supre- 
macy, and imposed it by name upon all 
public and private teachers of children, 
upon all who should take degrees in 
any university, and upon all that had 
taken, or should thereafter take, any 
degree of learning in or at the common 
law. 

Without minutely tracing the provi- 
sions of the subsequent acts, most of 
which are now virtually or actually re- 
pealed ; we must still, in order to com- 
prehend the condition to which the Ca- 
tholics were reduced by them, observe? 
that they aimed at the suppression of 
popery in the three following ways : 



m 

I. By conversion through the opera- 
tion of penalties. 

By 23 EH^. c. 1- § 5. Any person 
above the age of sizteenj^ absenting hii^- 
saif from church for a month, was HabL^ 
to a penalty of ^20 ; and as a punish- 
ment for the obstinacy of those who fofr 
bore, for the space of twelve months, 
they were over and besides the said pe- 
nalties, to be bound with two sureti^ 
to their good behaviour, in the sum of 
^200, and so to continue till they con- 
formed. 

The 35 Eliz. c. 1. condemns to im- 
prisonment, till they conformed, all those 
who absented themselves from church 
for forty days ; and who afterwards wer^ 
found at any unlawful assembly, con- 
venticle, or meeting, under colour or 
pretence of any exercise of religion. 

H. By debarring the Catholics from 
K 2 



68 



the exercise of their own rehgious rites 
and ceremonies. 

23 Eliz> c. 1. § 4. Every person who 
should say or sing mass, being thereof 
lawfully convicted, was to forfeit two 
hundred marks, and be committed to 
prison in the next goal, there to remain 
by the space of one year. Every per- 
son willingly hearing mass to forfeit one 
hundred marks, and suffer imprisonment 
for a year. 

III. By depriving the children of Ca- 
tholics of all means of instruction by 
teachers of their own persuasion. 

And this by the 5 Eliz. c. 1. § 5. 
above stated. 

By 23 Ehz. c. 1. § 6. Any person 
keeping a schoolmaster, who did not 
repair to the church, or was not allowed 
by the bishop, should forfeit for every 



69 



month £10^ and the schoolmaster him- 
self to suffer imprisonment for a year. 

By the 27 Ehz. c, 2. § 5. " Any per 
son brought up in any college of Jesuits 
or seminary, priests beyond the seas, 
who did not within six months after 
proclamation return, and submit himself 
before a bishop, or two justices, and 
take the oath of supremacy, then any 
such person otherwise returning, was ad- 
judged a traitor, and was to suffer as in 
cases of treason/' 

The 6th section subjects to the pe» 
nalty of prcemunire^ those who send mo- 
ney to any person in such foreign col- 
lege. 

The object of Ehzabeth's polic}^ was 
clearly to disable those as enemies whom 
she thought she could not trust as 
friends ; but her aversion to enormous 
cruelty prevented her measures from 



70 



being effective. The Catholics were ir^ 
ritated, but not subdued by these seve- 
rities. Even at this period, when, un- 
fortunately for religion, and the peace 
of society, theology so much influenced 
the pohtics of Europe ; princes, in their 
transactions with each other, avowed 
their conviction, that temporal interests 
would always prevail over spiritual. 
Upon the treaty of Edinburgh, in the 
very commencement of her reign, Eliza- 
beth scrupled not to appoint the bigot- 
ed Philip umpire between her and the 
crown of France. Thus also, at every 
period of her reign, an union between 
the great Catholic sovereigns of France 
and Spain, would have been sufficient 
to overwhelm her power. Religion as 
much recommended this junction of in- 
terests, as their political views opposed 
it, and Elizabeth setting at nought their 
religious animosity, maintained the king- 
dom in security and independence. And 
when, upon the approach of the Ar- 



71 



mada, the puritan Leicester proposed to 
her the same inhuman pohey which the 
Cathohc Aiva had suggested to Cathe- 
rine of Medicis, in her treatment of the 
Hugonots, and advised her to dispatch 
the leaders of the Cathohc party, she 
rejected it with her usual good sense and 
magnanimity. Oppressed as they were, 
she thought that they would still insti- 
tute a comparison between the evils of 
domestic and foreign subjugation ; and 
she soon experienced how highly even 
this forbearance was appreciated by the 
zeal and activity they displayed in de- 
fence of their native country. 

It would have been happy for her, 
had she possessed the benefit of our ex- 
perience, and learned that the extension 
of the same enlightened policy is the true 
secret for appeasing domestic dissension. 

That upon a total change of religion, 
and before any proof of the submission 



72 



of her subjects, some criterion to dis« 
tinouish the obedient from the non-con- 
tbrmists, should be adopted , could not, 
according to the principles of that age, 
be deemed unreasonable. It must be 
admitted also, that the Catholics, from 
their declared maxims, and recent con- 
duct, were not entitled to any great in- 
dulgence at the hands of a sovereign of 
a different persuasion. Of that part, 
therefore, of the act of supremac}', by 
which a test was required from all those 
who enjoyed a share in the administra- 
tion, and emoluments of the state, the 
Catholics had no great reason to com- 
plain. But here the most bitter exclu- 
sionist of the present day must admit, 
that she ought to have stopped. When 
the oath ^ras imposed upon all public 
and private teachers, when conversion 
bv penalties was attempted, when the 
exercise of the Catholic religion in any 
manner, however private, was prohibit- 
ed, when its votaries were deprived of 



73 



all means of educating their offspring, 
we see legislation pushed beyond its 
proper limits, and an assumption of 
power, in its principle as unjust, as its 
operation is baneful. The Catholics, 
during this whole reign, were upon the 
brink of rebellion, and the eternal con- 
troversy will be, whether the penal laws 
were the cause, or the consequence of 
their disaffection. The 5th of Eliz. is 
the first statute which materially inter- 
fered with their rights : Lord Montacute 
opposed the bill, and asserted in favour 
of the Catholics, " that they disputed 
not, they preached not, they disobeyed 
not the queen, they caused no trouble, 
no tumults among the people.''^ 

The detention of the Queeur of Scots 
was another circumstance which, result- 
ing from a policy, not easily reconcile- 
?tble with either generosity or justice,^ 



* Hume, vol. V. p. 76. 
I. 



74 



was unavoidably attended with conse- 
quences which materially affected the 
tranquillity of the nation. If Mary 
could detach from his allegiance such a 
character as the Duke of Norfolk, a 
Protestant, and indisputably the first 
subject of England, can we be surpris- 
ed, that such powerful motives combin- 
ed, as compassion for her misfortunes, 
a sense of their own degradation, and 
the hope of enjoying, by her means, 
their rights and religion in security, 
should have prompted the Catholics to 
look to her as their rallying point, and 
tempted them perpetually to disturb a 
government by Vv^hich they were insult- 
ed ? It is unquestionably true, that the 
Jesuits and foreign priests were most 
dangerous enemies of the state ; and 
that Mary and her partizans considered 
assassination a legitimate mode of re- 
dressing their wrongs. But men are 
driven into these detestable opinions. 
Persecution is itself a violation of the 



75 



essence of morality. This departure 
from the obligations which, independ- 
ently of creeds and articles, connect 
human beings together, is uniformly en- 
countered by a similar and equal depar- 
ture on the side of the persecuted. When 
men suffer unjustly, they resist unwar- 
rantably. Both parties conscious that 
human reason condemns them, delude 
themselves by looking up to higher 
sources of justification ; and thus prin- 
ciples, fatal to human happiness, be- 
come ingrafted and incorporated with 
religion itself. 

Elizabeth successfully pursued that 
policy towards foreign states which the 
religious divisions of her own subjects 
enabled them to retaliate upon her. If 
the Pope, Philip, or the King of France, 
instigated her Cathohc subjects to re- 
volt, was she one whit behind them 
in stirring up rebellions, by her in- 
trigues with the inhabitants of the 

L 2 



76 



Low Countries, the Hugonots, or the 
Scotch ? 

In fact, the sovereigns of this age, 
making a portion of their subjects, feel 
nothing of government but its terrors, 
exposed themselves most unnecessarily 
to the machinations of their enemies. 
When Elizabeth had rendered it highly 
penal for the Catholics to rear a native 
priesthood, and even prohibited domestic 
education, she had reduced them to the 
miserable alternative of becoming brutes 
or apostates. If they went abroad for 
the purposes of education, that foreign 
influence was necessarily created which 
was afterwards punished. Could it be 
matter of astonishment, that colleges 
established at Douay, Rheims, or Rome, 
under the superintendance of Jesuits, 
and under the patronage of Philip, 
Guise, or the Pope, should become se- 
minaries of rebellion ? And when, bv 
the subsequent act, she required, upon 



77 



the penalty of treason, that those so 
educated should return and make sub- 
mission, what was it but visiting with 
outrageous severity an offence which she 
herself had caused, and punishing the 
inevitable effects of her own previous 
impoHcy ? 

That the penalties inflicted by these 
statutes wTre not vain terrors held over 
the heads of the Catholics, we have am- 
ple authority from history to prove* 
Hume informs us, that Elizabeth used to 
suffer the penalties to run on, and then 
levy them to the utter ruin of such Ca- 
tholics as had incurred her displeasure. 
The Catholics too, in order to evade 
them, had recourse to the usual expe- 
dient of men in a state of insecuritj^ and 
were in the habit of making over their 
properties, to be held by others in trust 
for them, and a statute was expressly 
made to prevent this practice.^' 

^ 29 Eliz. c. 6, 



78 



Upon the whole, in Considering the 
Cathohcs under this reign, we see a 
body of men, in whose persons reUgious 
and civil freedom were equally and es- 
sentially violated. Between them and 
the state there was no association of in- 
terests, no protection on the one hand, 
to call forth attachment on the other. 
The object for which government was 
instituted, and upon the realizing of 
which it alone is entitled to support, was 
not answered as far as they were con- 
cerned. 



T9 



CHAP. III. 

James I. — Charles I. 

JAMES I. 

Th E Catholics regarded the accession 
of James as an event hkely to be fol- 
lowed by very important and beneficial 
consequences. They naturally expected, 
that their devotion to his mother's cause, 
and the sufferings to which they had 
been exposed in defence of it, would 
not be forgotten. James had written to 
Clement VIII. a letter full of the most 
mild and tolerating sentiments ; and by 
himself, or his ministers, had even held 
out the probability of his becoming a 
proselyte to the Romish church. " It 
is certain/' says Mr. Osburn, " that the 
promise King James made to Roman 
Catholics was registered, and amounted 



80 



so high, at least, as a toleration of their 
religion/'^ 

These promises were, we may presume, 
considered justifiable expedients to con- 
cihate the Catholics, that they might 
receive him with joy as their sovereign. 
It was soon apparent, that they were 
never to be fulfilled. In the very com- 
mencement of this reign, an act-f* was 
passed for the due and exact execution 
of the laws enacted by Elizabeth; and 
the principle was still recognized in its 
full extent, that non-conformity was in 
itself a crime, and that without refer- 
ence to political principles. Dissenters 
were liable to punishment for exercising 
their own mode of worship, and reject- 

* Trial of conspirators in the gunpowder plot. State 
Trials, vol. i. p. £31, &c. Burnet's Summary, vol. i, 
History of his own Times. Laing's History of Scot- 
land, vol. i. p. 56. Curry's Civil Wars in Ireland, p. 
49, &c. 

+ 2 Jac. I. c. 4. 



81 



ing that established by the civil magis- 
trate. 

During the early periods of our his- 
tory, the people and sovereign acting in 
concert, had in many instances presented 
a rampart against the usurpations of the 
church of Rome, and compelled the 
clergy to preserve their spiritual connex- 
ion with the Pope in subordination to 
their allegiance to the crown. Under 
Edward I. Edward III. and Henry VII, 
the nation went along with the sovereign 
in attempts to vindicate his indepen- 
dence and their own. But now, when 
the union of interests between the sove- 
seign and the Catholics had been vio- 
lently destroyed, and this portion of the 
people was proscribed, their privileges 
as citizens withdrawn, and every thing 
dear to them as subjects and men embit- 
tered or intercepted, they averted their 
views from their native country, w^hich 
was to them a land of systematic bon- 

M 



82 



dage and oppression, and cast their eyes 
abroad in search of that protection which 
they ought to have found at home. A 
new dynasty having succeeded without 
bringing to them any prospect of allevia- 
tion from their burthens, no ties of amity, 
no sympathy of interests being recog- 
nized by their Protestant fellow-country- 
men, foreign influence instead of being 
extinguished was increased and con- 
firmed. The Catholics might well con- 
sider that they were debtors to the state 
in a large amount of cruelty and injus- 
tice: the hope of wreaking their ven- 
geance enabled Jesuits and other dan- 
gerous emissaries to brave all the terrors 
of the laws; they inflamed discontent 
for which already there was but too just 
ground, they broached doctrines the most 
subversive of society ; and the Catholics 
received with greedy ears principles, 
which, under the sanction of religion, 
promised to give a loose to their hatred of 
their persecutors, and gratify their thirst 



83 



for revenge. To these causes we may 
attribute that almost incredible conspi- 
racy, the Gun-powder Plot, emphatically 
termed by Sir Edward Coke, the Jesuits^ 
treason.^ In the trial of Garnet the supe- 
rior of that order, it is somewhat amusing 
to find Coke himself strenuously urging, 
that the power of deposing princes was a 
power usurped by different popes, but 
which had never been authorized by the 
doctrine of the Romish church.-^- All must 
agree in the language of the Act, J that the 
Plot was an invention so inhuman, barba- 
rous, and cruel, as the like was never heard 
of ; but, when the statute assigns the rea- 
son why the House of Parliament was the 
spot chosen for this act of revenge, we 
cannot so readily concur in the epithets 
by which the legislature thought proper 

* State Trials, vol. i. p. £50. 

t I do not quote him as good authority, but as one 
of the fiercest bigots of the bigoted age in which he hved, 
and as the probable author of some of the most savage of 
the penal laws. 

% 3 Jac. i. c. 1. Appointing a public Thanksgiving. 
M 2 



84 



to designate its own acts ; we cannot im- 
mediately pronounce that the laws there 
made were^*^ necessary or religious laws/' 
nor that the Catholics " falsely and slan- 
derously termed them cruel laws enacted 
against them and their religion/' In 
fact, James himself never involved the 
body of the Catholics in the suspicion of 
general guilt ; but considered the Gun- 
powder Plot as the conspiracy of the 
Jesuits and of a few perverted men w^hom 
previous injuries had exasperated, and 
rendered more accessible to the influence 
of designing men. The king felt no such 
horror of the Pope as actuated his sub- 
jects ; on the contrary he corresponded 
with him, acknowledged him to be the 
first of Christian bishops in rank and dig- 
nity, and admitted his style of Patriarch 
of the West. At different periods James 
shewed a disposition to relax the execu- 
tion of the penal statutes ; and whatever 
severities were inflicted on the Catholics 
during this or the following reigns of the 



85 



bouse of Stuart, they are to be ascribed^ 
not to the personal aversion or disposi- 
tion to cruelty of the sovereign, nor 
(with the exception of the Gun-pov/der 
Treason which occun^ed in the beginning 
of James's reign), can they be referred to 
the dislo^^alty of the Catholics them- 
selves. They were called for by the reli- 
gious temper of the Protestants, and 
especially of the House of Commons, who 
wxre perpetually urging the executive to 
acts of violence. 

During the reign of James, this spirit 
began to display itself in repeated ad- 
dresses to the king for a vigorous execu- 
tion of the law^s ; to which, on one occa- 
sion, he returned an answer declaring 
against persecution as being an improper 
measure for the suppression of any reli- 
gion, assigning as his reason the received 
maxim, " that the blood of the Mar- 
tyrs was the seed of the Church.* 

* Hume vol. vi. p. 87. 



86 

The transaction upon which James 
most prided himself, was the settlement 
of Ireland. The policy by which that 
country had been hitherto governed, was 
pecuUar, and probably unparallelled in 
the history of the world. The rebellions 
of the Irish are still perpetually referred 
to as sure indications of the national cha- 
racter, or of the genius of the Catholic 
religion ; it is a part therefore of my sub- 
ject to ascertain, if possible, from what 
causes those miseries really flowed, with 
which, during so many centuries, that 
unhappy country was afflicted. 

Had Ireland never been invaded, some 
individual amongst its native chieftains, 
by a superiority in savage virtues, might 
have consolidated under one government 
the numerous septs into which it was 
divided. Containing within itself the 
elements of greatness, that country might 
then have passed from barbarism to 
civility through the usual steps, and in 



87 



the same period with other kingdoms. 
But this destiny was denied to it from 
its contiguity to a nation more powerful 
than itself, and which a long and close 
connexion with the continent of Eu- 
rope had somewhat more advanced in 
refinement. 

If we look back to the transactions of 
antiquity, we find repeated instances of 
conquests by enhghtened nations over 
the barbarous regions surrounding them; 
or on the other hand, where civihzation 
has dwindled into effeminacy, of polished 
nations becoming a prey to barbarians. 

In either case, a mind seasoned with 
humanity, finds something wherewith to 
console itself. After the first shock of 
arms, the conquerors either imparted to 
the conquered, or received from them 
such an improvement in the arts and 
embellishments of life, such a participa- 
tion in laws, commerce, and general inte- 



88 



rests, that the quantity of human happi- 
ness was seldom diminished^ and often 
greatly augmeotedo 

But Ireland was invaded only and not 
conquered : during the long period of 
above 400 years, it was at best sta- 
tionar}^ if it did not recede in civiliza- 
tion : and the invaded were prevented 
from doing that for themselves which 
their invaders were alwavs unwillino; to 
do for them. 

This imperfect subjugation of Ireland 
was caused b}^ the ardour with which 
the English sovereigns were seized for 
conducting crusades, or making con- 
quests in France ; by the distractions 
incident to intestine commotions, or the 
contests between the houses of York 
and Lancaster; bv the avarice of some 
monarchs and the imbecility of others.* 

Discovery of the true causes why Ireland was 
never subdued, by Su' John Davies. This is an author 



89 



But whatever were the causes, the ef- 
fects to the Irish were never-ceasing mi- 
ser}^ and oppress! on • The insignificant 
conquests in the reign of Henry II; were 
made by private adventurers to whom 
he had given letters patent for that pur- 
pose. A continued bordering war was 
kept up between the Enghsh and Irish, 
just sufficient to hinder the introduction 
of the arts of peace, and altogether in- 
adequate to reduce the natives to sub- 
mission. Till the 39th of Elizabeth no 
vigorous attempt to subdue the country 
was ever made ; no royal army paid or 
maintained by the state was ever sent, 
or if sent ever continued for any length 
of time sufficient for the purpose.^ 

The government being unequal to the 

whose veracity and ability are unquestionable : he was 
some time Attorney-geneial in Ireland under James I. 
and as he tells us, in sundry journeys and circuits, had 
visited all the provinces in that kingdom. 
^ Davies, p, 9. 



90 



protection of the first settlers, lost all 
controul over their conduct. Partly by 
conquest, partly by intermarriage with 
the natives, their leaders soon became 
possessed of such territories and immu- 
nities, that they more resembled petty 
sovereigns than subjects. They made . 
war and peace without the consent of 
the state; their forces were recruited 
from their own domains ; and main- 
tained by coigne and livery,^ and other 
modes of extortion equally abominable. 
Many of the English tenants to whom 
these oppressions were intolerable, quitted 
their lands and returned into England ; 
they were replaced by Irish tenants ; 
with these the lords intermarried and 
fostered ; upon them they levied all the 

^ Davies 31, &:c. Coigne and livery was horse-meat, 
man's-meat, and money without any ticket or other satis- 
faction. It is said in an ancient discourse Of the De- 
cay of Ireland, that though it were first invented in 
Hell, yet if it had been used and practised there as it 
hath been in Ireland, it had long since destroyed the 
very kingdom of Belzebub." Id. p. 33, 



91 



Irish exactions ; and within one age both 
lords and freeholders degenerated into 
mere Irish in language, apparel, arms^ 
and in all customs of life whatever.^ 

The real English dominion was soon 
circumscribed within the limits of a 
narrow district lying in the centre of the 
kingdom called the Pale, consisting of 
the countv of Dublin, and the three ad- 
jacent counties of Louth, Meath, and 
Kildare. Whatever might be the case 
with the heads of the Irish septs, or great 
lords, the body of the Irish were at all 
times anxious to be placed under the pro- 
tection of the English laws and govern- 
ment. This was a wish dictated bv the 
extreme insecurity and oppression to 
which from the native Brehon law and 
Tanistry they were perpetually exposed. 
This wish is evinced by a petition pre- 
sented by them to Edward III. desiring 
that they might enjoy and use the laws 

^ Davids, p. 32. 

N 2 



of England, and by the alacrity of their 
submission to Richard II. and other 
royal or powerful personages, whenever 
they appeared amongst them.^' 

Will any one who knows what the 
meaning and end of government is, be- 
lieve, unless upon the most irrefragable 
evidence, that such a wish should per- 
severingly have been resisted, not by the 
heads of the septs alone, but by the 
English rulers also ? Unfortunately, the 
fact is but too well established by the ex- 
istence of records in civil and criminal 
pleas, and of charters of denization, 
which, the Irish were compelled to sue 
out even so late as the accession of 
James* By these it sufficiently appears, 
that, neither could an Irishman recover 
for any civil injury against an English- 
man, nor was he in the King's peace, so 
that if killed his murderer could be pu- 
nished. In fact, with the exception of 

^ Davies p. 99, 



93 



the English colonies, and a few en- 
franchised septs of Irishry, the whole na-^ 
tion was placed in a state of outlawry; 
and the Irish were reputed aliens, or 
rather perpetual enemies to the crown of 
England. The avowed though execrable 
and inhuman policy during many cen- 
turies was, to draw^ a line of eternal se- 
paration between the English and Irish ; 
and by fomenting divisions amongst 
what wevc called the English-Irish, 
and exciting wars between them and 
the natives, to extirpate those whom 
it was found impossible to conquer.^ 

Good government would lose its 
praise and its value if such a system of 
rule had not been a fruitful source of 
misery and desolation. Here are causes 
totally independent of religious animo° 
sities which made rebellion virtue, and 
submission, not resistance, treason. 



Davies, p. 114. 



94 



The wretched natives, as is iiniformfv 
the case, were victims to the crimes of 
the government : denied protection by 
the English, they were compelled to seek 
it in the strictest union and niost unli- 
mited obedience to their immediate 
lords. Bj them they were kept in the 
darkest ignorance and grossest barbarism, 
that they might be more subservient to 
their will ; and this policy was not unac- 
ceptable to the English, who thought 
that in such a state they were less for- 
midable to their authority. 

That the povvcr of Shan O'Neale, of 
Desmond, or of Tj^rone in the reign of 
Elizabeth, was inordinate, may be grant- 
ed ; that the vices and ignorance of the 
nation were excessive, there is no reason 
to doubt ; but it ought to have been re- 
membered what had occasioned that 
power in the chiefs, and that uncivilized 
state of the people. Or to whatever 
source these defects in the condition of 



95 



the Irish people might be ascribed, they 
furnished no excuse for that shameful 
perfidy and merciless cruelty by which 
the former was suppressed and the latter 
chastised. 

But the enormous forfeitures,^ which 
on every rebellion, fell to the crown and 
were divided amongst the English em-- 
ployed under it, were a harvest so rich, 
and temptation so powerful, that, the 
prospect of them effectually overcame 
in general the virtue of the deputies 

^ 574,62s acres, English measure, upon the attainder 
of Desmond and his confederates, were forfeited and 
disposed of to Enghsh undertakers. 

Upon the last revolt of Tyrone in the reign of James, 
SIX whole counties in Ulster, containing 500,000 acres 
were confiscated, the inhabitants expelled, and a colony 
of Scots planted in their room. 

There must have been excellent gleanings for the 
officers civil and mihtary of the English government, if 
we may judge from a grant to Sir Walter Raleigh 
of 40,000 acres. — Curry's Civil Wars in Ireland, 
p. 27, &c. 



96 



and commanders appointed to govern 
Ireland. 

Hence the chiefs were studiously 
driven into insurrection , no faith was 
kept with them, no pardon for former 
treasons was ever binding, they were 
ensnared when they appeared within 
the English pale to answer charges fa- 
bricated against them, and often exe- 
cuted without any regard to law, ho- 
nour, or humanity. 

Doctor Curry has published a most 
curious memoriar^ addressed to Eliza- 

Lee's Memorial Appendix to Curry, No, I ; written 
during the government of Sir William Fitzwilliams, 1594» 
Lee offers the following test of the truth of his charges : 
" I desire not that your majesty should either simply cre- 
dit me this my plain detecting them (i. e. her officers) 
nor them in excusing themselves ; but if it please your 
highness, to appoint commissioners in that realm for 
the trial, if I prove not directly all that I have here de- 
clared, let me lose your gracious favour for ever." 



97 



beth by one of her captains in Ireland, 
fully justifying the remarks I have made 
upon the character and conduct of th^ 
governors of his time. He states him- 
self to have been intimately acquainted 
with Tyrone, and attributes his resist- 
ance to her authority solely to his ex- 
perience of the treachery which was 
practised against those who submitted 
to it. I will venture to offer a few ex- 
tracts* 

" And whereas some affirm, that he 
(Tyrone) standeth upon a pardon for 
himself and his folloA^ers ; I think not so ; 
for he and they hold themselves in less 
safety thereby than they were before, 
because they have seen pardons serve 
(in their conceit) rather for traps to 
catch others in, than for true and just 
remission and acceptance into the free 
benefit of subjects, which maketh him 
fear the like practice towards him- 
self. 

o 



98 



^' If there go not some speedy contents 
nient to the earl, to stay all this expected 
fury which is like to happen, but that 
there must be present wars^ made upon 
him and his adherents, your majesty 
shall take him in hand at a very unfit 
time, when they are thoroughly provided 
to do great mischief, and your majesty 
not so provided to defend your poor 
subjects from their sudden force and fury, 

" Your majesty, since you were queen, 
never had so great cause to bethink you 
of the service of that place, as now you 
have. Your highness shall not get sa 
great honour in cutting off him and thou^ 
sands of those bare people that follow 
him, as you shall to win him and them 
to be good and I03 al subjects, and to live 
and serve your highness for good offices, 

* The wars, ho\Yeveivdicl succeed ; and after the failure 
of Essex, an immense loss of blood and treasure, were 
concluded by the submission of Tyrone to the deputy 
Mountjoy. 



99 



As the case now standeth with the eart^ he 
hath small encouragements to he otherwise 
than now he is^ 

For where it was your majesty^s 
pleasure he should have great encou- 
ragement given him, by thanks for his 
last service against Maguire, it was heild 
from him ; and, instead of that, they de- 
vised all means and policies to aggravate 
matters against him to your majesty^ which 
is credibly made known tin to him ; aiid 
more, that upon what security soever he 
should come in^ your majesty's pleasure is 
to have him detained. How he hath these 
advertisements hence, I know not; but 
your UTajesty is, or shall be, informed^ 
that he and his lady are papists, and fo- 
ment seminaries, &c. 

" True it is, he is affected that way^ 
but less hurtfully and dangerously than 
some of the greatest in the English pale: 
for when he is with the state, he will 

o 2 



100 



accompany the lord deputy to the 
church, and home again, and will stay 
and hear service and sermon ; they, as 
soon as they have brought the lord de- 
puty to the church door, depart as if 
they were wild cats, and are obstinate: 
but he (in my conscience) w ith good con- 
ference, would be reformed; for he hath 
only one little cub of an English priest, 
by whom he is seduced, for want of his 
friend's access to him, who might other- 
wise uphold him,'" &c. 

With this not very bigoted practice 
of his religion, Tyrone, like an able 
leader, gladly accepted a phoenix plume 
consecrated by the Pope; and probably 
found the value of the present in the 
blind devotion to his cause with which 
it inspired his followers. The worship 
of a nation, so circumstanced as the 
Irish, could be nothing but mere idola- 
try. Had they been capable of the be- 
nefits of the Reformation, the mem- 



101 



bers of the church, recently estabhshed 
amongst them, were not hkeh^ from 
their characters or abihties, to make nu- 
merous proselytes. Whatever disor- 
ders/' says Spenser, " are in the church 
of England, may be seen in the church 
of Ireland, and much more; nameh^, 
gross simony, greedy covetousness, flesh- 
ly incontinency, careless sloth, and ge« 
nerally all disordered life in common 
clergymen/'-^ 

Indeed, while reviewing the civil wars 
and rebellions of Ireland, it is quite im- 
possible, with any regard to truth, to 
compliment the Protestant at the ex- 
pense of the Catholic religion, on the 
score of its superior humanity or tole- 
rating spirit. The adherents of both 
seem equally interested in admittingv 
that the real origin of the multiplied ca- 
lamities under which that country suf- 
fered, is to be traced to the system of 

* State of Ireland, p. 131. Curry, p. 5, 



10^ 



tyranny and misrule which had so long 
prevailed. As far as religion instigated 
either side, it was of that spurious kind 
which infuses rancorous malignity and 
deadly hatred into the breasts of men. 
It was a bond of inhuman persecution to 
the Protestants, and of savage retalia- 
tion to the Catholics ; while an Irishman 
and a papist was held up as necessarily 
an enemy to God and his sovereign, an 
Englishman and an heretic was consider- 
ed an irreconcileable foe to all religion 
and humanity. 

James, to quiet the apprehensions of 
his Irish subjects, very prudently passed 
an act of oblivion, comprehending all 
offences against the crown, and all par- 
ticular trespasses between subject and 
subject, committed before the commence- 
ment of his reign. Not long after,'^ the 
king issued a proclamation, setting forth 

* In 1605. Curry, p. 56. 



103 



that his subjects of Ireland had been 
deceived by a report, that he was dis- 
posed to allow them liberty of conscience, 
wherefore he declared to all his beloved 
subjects, that he would not admit any 
such liberty; ordered them to frequent 
their respective churches and chapels, 
and enjoined a strict execution of the 
statute of uniformity passed in the se- 
cond year of Elizabeth. This statute, 
and the act of supremacy, were nov>^ 
first imposed upon the Irish, They had 
been passed through the Irish parliament 
in the queen's reign by force and fraud, 
and had hitherto been dispensed with. 
The fines levied, in consequence, were 
esteemed just and necessary by the king, 
as he had conceived a hope, ^' that many, 
by such means, would be brought to 
conformity, vdio, perhaps, would after- 
wards find cause to gi\ e thanks to God 
and him for being drawn by so gentle 
constraint to their own good/'^ 

* Curry, pp. 56 £c 66. 



104 



This is the stale, and insolent plea, 
upon which all persecutors have justified 
their cruelties ; and svich hopes, real or 
pretended, avowed and acted on in the 
government of Ireland, wxre sufficient 
to counteract any benefits, which might 
otherwise have arisen, from the improve- 
ments introduced by this king into its 
civil polity. These improvements con- 
sisted in placing the whole kingdom un- 
der the protection of the English law ; 
in introducing sheriffs into the shires, 
which had hitherto been without them ; 
and in enabling justice to make her re- 
gular circuits through all the provinces. 
What then was wanting;? A more en- 
lightened, virtuous, and impartial ad- 
ministration of the powers of govern- 
ment. LavvS cannot execute themselves; 
and the beneficial influence of them must 
be felt by those who preside over their 
execution, before they can yield peace 
and joy to a people. What Ireland suf- 
fered from this want, I shall have occa- 



105 



sion to point out. In the mean time, 
we must make large allowances for the 
enthusiasm of one who was aware of 
the iniquities of past times, and was 
the cause, in some degree, of the pre- 
sent amendment; we must give full 
latitude to the exception made, before 
we can agree with Sir John Davies, 
that now " the clock of the civil govern- 
ment is well set, and all the wheels there- 
of do move in order ; the strings of this 
Irish harp, which the civil magistrate 
doth finger (for I omit to speak of the 
state ecclesiastical) are all in tune, and 
make a good harmony in this common- 
weal." ^ 

CHARLES I. 

Whether any and what benefits can 
be fairly said to result from that close 
union between church and state, which 
the acts of supremacy created, is a ques- 
tion upon Avhich the best friends of re- 
ligion and liberty must be allowed to 



106 



pauscj and express themselves in terms 
of doubt and hesitation. The powers of 
civil, and those of ecclesiastical govern- 
ment, are as widely different in their 
extent, as in the ends for which they are 
exercised : the aid which thej alternately 
attempt to give each other, is generally 
fallacious, and operates ultimately to the 
prejudice of both. A religion establish- 
ed by law, leans for support, not upon 
reason, but on temporal power; and a 
civil magistrate, who is taught that he is 
the arbiter of a nation^s faith, listens to 
the dreams of ecclesiastics, and chal- 
lenges obedience as his right by divine 
indefeasible commission. This blending 
in the same individual of pre-eminencies, 
not easily compatible, was one main 
source of the misfortunes of the house of 
Stuart. The restraints upon liberty of 
conscience, and exercise of religion, 
which the penal statutes imposed, pro- 
duced on the part of the Catholics dis- 
affection under EHzabeth, and conspi- 



107 



racy under James I. To the same injudi- 
cious severities must be ascribed that 
formidable schism which now existed 
amongst the Protestants themselves ; — a 
schism, originating in differences the 
most frivolous imaginable, but become 
fatal and irreconcileable. The indiscreet 
zeal of the sovereign for the establish- 
ment of religious uniformity, conjoined 
with the preposterous endeavours of 
churchmen to defend arbitrary power in 
the crown, were followed by a convulsion 
from the top to the bottom of the politic 
cal fabric ; and, in the end, the church 
itself was destroyed, and monarchy over- 
thrown. With such ill grace and effect 
does the rude hand of the magistrate in- 
terfere with a view to compose religious 
dissension ; so impracticable is the at- 
tempt to divert men from errors of opi- 
nion by the employment of force, even 
when those errors proceed from causes 
so widely dissimilar as superstition and 
fanaticism. 

p 2 



108 



At first sight, it appears very singular, 
that in all the struggles between Charles 
and his subjects, no prospect of relief 
should have been opened to the Catho- 
lics. We observe during his reign a 
great combination of most able men zea- 
lously shaking off the shackles of civil 
and ecclesiastical tyranny; and deeply 
sensible of the intolerable oppression of 
the court of high commission, and of 
the penal laws, when exercised against 
themselves. We might expect that the 
rights of conscience which the patriots 
asserted in the highest degree for all Pro- 
testants, they would allow to members of 
another persuasion. Yet it is notorious, 
that all the advocates of liberty who ap- 
peared in this age, were not merely in- 
different to the sufferings of the Catho- 
lics, but laboured to increase them ; and 
were distinguished by an inveterate and 
eternal hatred against their religion. 
This argues either a peculiar delinquency 
in these religionists, or that the princi- 



109 



pies of liberty then current were of a 
bastard and spurious kind. 

As the causes which, at the period we 
are now reviewing, produced such an 
irremovable jealousy and detestation of 
the Catholics, have been in a considera- 
ble degree permanent, and influence our 
conduct towards them at the present 
day, it may be useful as well us interest- 
ing to endeavour to trace them to their 
origin. 

Many of our earliest reformers, aware, 
that by a passionate and declared zeal 
against popery they had rendered them- 
selves obnoxious to punishment, fled into 
foreign countries from the severities in- 
flicted by Mary,^ and returned into Eng- 

* Peter Martyr that had come over upon the public 
faith, had leave given him to go beyond sea ; so also 
had Alasco and the Germans ; and about 200 of diem 
went away in December: but, both in Denmark where 
they first landed, and in Lubeck, Wismar, and Hamburgh, 



110 



land upon the accession of Elizabeth. 
Heated by tlie warmth of their own 
tempers, and by their commmiication 
wdth Calvin and other divines, the mo- 
derate reformation, which had taken 
place in their own comitry vv^as little less 
distasteful to them than to the Catholics 
themselves. The foundation of their 
religious system, was the unlimited per-- 
mission they allowed to all men of exer- 
cising the right of private judgment in 
matters of faith. A noble and philoso- 
phical principal certainly L and contain- 
ing within it the precious germ of ci- 
vil and religious freedom : a privilege 



to which they removed, they were denied admittance be- 
cause they were of the Helvetian Confession, and in all 
those places the fierce Lutherans prevailed ; who did so 
far put off all bowels that they would not so much as 
suffer these refugees to stay among them till the rigours 
of the winter were over ; but at last they found shelter in 
Frizeland/' — Burnet's Hist. Ref. Abr, b. iii. p. £24. 

About a thousand of the English had escaped before 
the council took means to hinder thara. Id. 



Ill 



flattering in the highest degree to the 
ambition of the human heart ; grateful 
to all, though delusive in some degree as 
far as the mass of any nation is con- 
cerned ; dangerous even to the best in- 
formedj unless embraced with the cau- 
tion and moderation befitting the extent 
of human capacity. By the irradiation 
which occasionally was poured upon the 
minds of the most ignorant equally with 
the most instructed, the will of the AL 
mighty was supposed to be manifested ; 
and every prescribed form of external 
homage which man could pay to his 
Creator, they considered as altogether 
unworthy of his perfections. Human 
learning they rejected as mere dross ; 
and to employ in aid of devotion mate- 
rial objects, such as painting, or sculp- 
ture, or the pomp or elegance of ves- 
ture, was to sully the purity of worship,^ 
and call off the mind from that inward 
contemplation by which alone the attri- 
butes of Deity could be grasped and 



112 



comprehended. The necessary effect of 
this abstract and spirituaUzed system of 
devotion, was, to abate the reverence of 
those who practised it for all institutions, 
forms, ceremonies, and powers which 
were of human invention. All these 
were reduced in the eyes of the Puritans 
to a parity of insignificance. 

The confusion of all order religious and 
civil, the destruction of all elegance, the 
depravation of all learning, are among the 
consequences to be dreaded where such a 
spirit of religion has deeply infected a 
people. A¥hile the mind is gasping after 
unattainable purity, the ordinary de- 
cencies and duties of life run an immi- 
nent hazard of being undervalued and 
neglected. The salutary checks which 
the moral sense or common reason afford, 
are displaced and rejected ; and the in- 
dividual is delivered over a prey to ab- 
surdity and extravagance. The very 
strength with which a villainous propen- 



113 



sity is entertained too often passes for a 
proof that it is an inspiration. The 
lowest and weakest of mankind are natu- 
rally most disposed to embrace a system 
of religion, in which, no preparation is re- 
quisite to become a proficient, no endow- 
ments natural or acquired are availing ; 
and every debauched and delirious me- 
chanic is happy to be convinced with 
Mawworm in the play,'^ that he is partis 
Gularly favoured, and is sure that he has 
had a call. 

A very slight enumeration of a few of 
the distinguishing characteristics of the 
Romish Church will satisfactorily shew 
how abhorrent and diametrically oppo- 
site to it the genius and speculative 
principles of the Puritans necessarily 
were. The Romanist believes that a ca- 
non of faith has been imparted to man 
by divine revelation ; and that this reve- 



* Hypocrite, 
Q 



114 



lation is contained not in Scripture alone^ 
but in tradition likewise^ bj which Scrip- 
ture itself is truly known. This Church 
professes to reject every novel doctrine, 
to teach nothing but what it has re- 
ceived at first.* To confer on a tradi- 
tive rule of faith divine authority, it 
must be carried up to the preaching of 
the Apostles; whether such rule is at- 
tended with the properties of a revela- 
tion, a general oecumenical council can 
alone declare ; and this church in coun- 
cil is infallible from the promise of its 
founder, and consequently cannot allow 
individuals to examine, what, by virtue 
of this prerogative, it has once decided. 
The pre-eminence of honour, rank, and 
executive authorit}^ in spirituals, over the 
church wherever scattered, is attributed 
to the Pope as the successor of St. Peter; 
and from him derived and divided 
amongst all bishops and pastors, and 
even the lowest members of this catholic 

* Preface to Fleuri's Ecclesiastical History. 



115 



or universal communion. The priest- 
hood are separated from the laity as ves- 
sels destined to honour ; collectively they 
are the depositaries of truth, and ex- 
pounders of doctrine ; individually, they 
dole out to their respective flocks such 
portions of the divine precepts, as their 
spiritual knowledge and wants may per- 
mit and require. In all ages the worship 
of the church of Rome has been in a 
high degree ritual and ceremonial, cap^ 
tivating in the first instance the human 
senses by the attractions of exterior so-, 
lemnity and magnificence, and through 
them, exerting its influence on the heart 
and affections. It presents to its votary 
a long gradation of objects fitted to ex- 
cite his adoration ; and, employing these 
as adjuncts and incitements, it professes 
to carry him forward to the contempla-? 
tionof the great first cause. 



The corruption to which such a sys-^ 
tern of religious faith and policy obvi^ 

Q 2 



116 



ously tends, is to extinguish liberty of 
thought ; to degrade human reason ; to 
render the priesthood a class of men too 
sacred and irresponsible, and impercep- 
tibly, to foster in them views of personal 
aggrandizement and dominion. In every 
country this church has presented a well 
compacted fabric of subordination, and 
chain of dependance, from the highest 
to the lowest number: where the civil 
authority has acted in vmison with its 
views, it has proved the firmest support 
and stay against innovation: where per- 
secution has been attempted, it has, at 
all times, been able to exert a formidable 
resistance. 

These being the speculative princi- 
ples of the two religions, the Catholic 
and the Puritan, the views of their 
adherents on the subiect of civil duties 
were proportionably discordant. The 
incompatibility of Puritan doctrines 
with her supremacy, or with her high 



117 



notions of prerogative, was early ob- 
served by Elizabeth ; and some of the 
acts which were passed, especially in the 
latter part of her reign, were directed at 
least as much against the separatists from 
the church of England as against the Ca- 
tholics. In the reign of James, Bacon 
pointed out the danger to government 
from this quarter. Besides the Ro- 
man Catholics,'^ writes he to his patron, 
there is a generation of sectaries, the 
anabaptists, Brownists,^ and others of 
their kind : they have been several times 
very busy in this kingdom, under the co- 
lour of zeal for reformation of religion : 

* The Brownists derived their name from their 
founder, Robert Brown, whose boast it was at his death, 

that he had been committed to thirty-two prisons, in 
some of which he could not see his hand at noon-day. 
The Brow^nists condemned equally episcopacy and pres- 
bytery ; they did not allow the priesthood to be any dis- 
tinct order, or to give any indelible character. Under 
the name of Independents, they became, during the 
civil wars, the prevailing party. Biographical Diet. 
€d. 1813. 



118 

tKe king^ your master, knows tlieir dis-* 
positions very well; a small touch will 
put him in mind of them; he had expe- 
rience of them in Scotland, I hope he' 
will be aware of them in England: a 
little countenance, or connivency, sets 
them on fire/'^ James himself repeat- 
edly and openly proclaimed his detesta- 
tion of their principles, and his sense of 
their hostility to monarchical govern- 
ment. The whole reign of Charles I. was 
an ineffectual struggle against their for- 
midable and rapidly rising power. The 
frame of their ecclesiastical polity hav- 
ing a strong leaning towards democracy^ 
they w^ere naturally disposed to investi- 
gate narrowly the foundations and limits 
of monarchical power. The splendour 
of majesty more offended their eyes, than 
imposed on their understandings; and 
they were induced to consider all human 
beings responsible to those over whom 
their authority was exercised. Measur- 

Advice to Sir George Villiers, vol. 3y 4to. ed. 



119 



hig all greatness by the degrees of spiri* 
tyal grace vouchsafed to individuals, and 
believing that it was not confined by any 
laccidents of station or birth, nor capable 
of being; transmitted in the course of li- 
neal succession, they vfere slow to recog- 
nize any power in the monarch by divine 
commission to regulate their faith or con- 
troul their actions. 

We cannot blame Charles for striving 
to curb this temper in his subjects, so 
fatal to prerogatives, which had been ex^ 
ercised without dispute by his predeces- 
sors. The means he emplo3'ed to coun- 
teract the danger, though ineffectual and 
tjTannical, prove him at least to have 
traced the source from which it flowed. 
He attributed the insubordination to the 
fanaticism of his people, and their fana- 
ticism to the naked and metaphysical 
system of their tenets and devotion. It 
could not escape his observa^tion, that 
this fanatical tendency had been efiec- 



120 



tually provided against in the Romish 
church. He appears to have thought, 
that without approaching in doctrine, if 
he could assimilate in rites and ceremo- 
nies his establishment to that of Rome, 
he might be able to check that inquisi- 
tive and undaunted temper of mind in 
his people, so disposed to reject esta- 
blished precedent in temporal and spi- 
ritual subjects, and allay that spirit of 
fervour, which threatened to carry re- 
form and restraint into every department 
of his power. 

Now was Charles to prove to the 
world what benefit can be derived from 
that sworn league between church and 
state, which many are still so anxious to 
maintain. In vain did Laud and the 
king play into each other's hands, and 
through the star-chamber and court of 
high commission, endeavour to support 
each other's measures. The established 
clergy, by enforcing from their pulpits 



121 



the slavish doctrines of non-resistance, 
irreconcileably disgusted the political 
Puritans, who were ardently engaged in 
fixing limits to prerogative. Nor was it 
less fatal to the royal cause, that the 
authority of the crown was perpetually 
called forth to impose ceremonies on the 
religious Puritans which they abhorred. 
Thus the church and state became inex- 
tricably entangled, encumbered one an- 
other with help, and shared a common 
ruin. 

The unfortunate Catholics, without 
any demerits of their own, were made 
parties in the contest. They neither did, 
nor could, resist the pretensions of the 
crown, nor the claims of the people. 
Charles regarded them without indulg- 
ence or aversion. He was disposed to 
treat them with forbearance. The only 
persecution the English Catholics en- 
dured at his hands was, that in his 
straits, while he governed without par- 

n 



122 



liaments, he converted the fines upon 
recusancy into a source of ordinary re- 
venue. 

But to the opponents of administra- 
tion in church and state, the cry of no 
popery was an invaluable and indispens- 
able ally. It was then, as it is now, a 
cry of a most comprehensive nature. 
The essential difference in the genius and 
temper of the Catholic and the Puritan 
we have already endeavoured to explain. 
The feelings of holy indignation with 
which the latter regarded every thing 
belonging to the Romish church, created 
the most rancorous hatred against Ca- 
tholics themselves. Slavery itself was 
not sufficiently odious, unless considered 
as an emanation from popery. To ask 
a rational cause of this extravagant ha- 
tred, is not to comprehend the nature of 
religious antipathies. They are formid- 
able, because they neither spring from 
reason, nor yield to its influence. They 



123 



are undefined and mysterious, — a combi- 
nation of every horror that the deluded 
and imorant enthusiast can collect and 
mix up together. Those, who under an 
attack upon Laud, and the high com- 
mission, sought the overthrow of all ty- 
ranny, civil and ecclesiastical, combined 
readily by means of this Shibboleth with 
the religious fanatics, who saw in the 
new ceremonies the symbols of the beast, 
and the abominations of antichrist. 

Charles had that deference for his 
queen, which her sense, spirit, and beauty 
justified ; but there is no pretence for 
saying, that she had inspired him with 
any partiality for her religion. The in- 
sults to which she was exposed were dis- 
graceful to the people who offered, and 
to their leaders who sanctioned, or at 
least were indifferent to them. The king 
%vas a church of England man, if ever 
there was one. The executions of priests, 
the continual panics propagated against 

n 2 



the Catholics, not from fear, but hatred, 
were the disgraceful instruments which 
the advocates of civil liberty were in- 
duced to adopt in pursuit of their glo- 
rious ends. The frantic fanaticism with 
which, not only the people, but the first 
patriots in the House of Commons, were 
too deeply imbued, sullies the fame 
which their noble resistance to civil ty- 
ranny has justly acquired. 

This spirit was, at last, too powerful 
even for those who raised it to controul. 
Not only the outworks of superstition 
were levelled, but the fortress of religion 
itself was assaulted. Not only the slav* 
ish doctrines of arbitrary power were 
exploded, but the existence of all go- 
vernment was endangered. If the minds 
of the people were debased by the ido- 
latry and gainful superstition of the Ro- 
mish ecclesiastics, society itself was un- 
hinged by the triumph of the inde- 
pendents. 



125 



Let no one rail at superstition, as the 
greatest perversion to which reUgion is 
subject, till he has maturely reflected on 
the consequences of fanaticism. The 
former may be the more contemptible, 
but surely the latter is the more formid- 
able.* 

There is a defect usually attributed to 
the Catholic religion, which a considera- 
tion of the events of the present reign 
disposes me to believe not inherent in 
the religion itself more than in any other, 
but confined to the priesthood, and be- 
longing equally to the ecclesiastics of all 
persuasions ; I mean, the reproach of its 

* Swift^s Lord Peter, with his powder pimlerlim- 
pimp, and his universal pickle, was undoubtedly a rogue 
and a charlatan ; but Jack, with his way of working his 
father's will into any shape he pleased, so that it served 
bim for a night-cap when he went to bed, and for an 
umbrella in rainy weather, was the most disagreeable 
.and dangerous member that ever composed a part of hu- 
man society. 



126 



being inimical to civil liberty. There is 
a natural, but not amiable professional 
spirit which makes ecclesiastics indefa- 
tigable in the pursuit of their pecuUar, at 
the expense of the general interest. 
The loudest in clamour when the privi- 
leges of their own body are attacked, 
they are the most indifferent to attacks 
upon other orders; the first to engross 
power, the last and most unwilling to 
share it when acquired. All history 
attests that they are qualified rather to 
bear adversity with patience than pros- 
perity with moderation. It cannot be 
to the present period that the church of 
England looks with complacency, when 
it plumes itself upon being friendly to 
civil freedom. The principles of liberty 
are indeed deducible from the Presbyte- 
rian form of church government; but 
when the ecclesiastical overcame the civil 
power in Scotland, was there any change 
except from one to thirty tyrants ? Have 
the ecclesiastics of Rome in modem 



times claimed greater immunities for 
their order, more entire exemption from 
civil controul, than Lavid and his asso- 
ciates ? Have they ever more obtruded 
themselves into secular affairs, or inter- 
fered more with the temporal power of 
the state than the Presbyters in Scot- 
land ? Can any one of these churches 
in the day of its ascendancy justly assert 
that it has distinguished itself by its to- 
leration of other sects, by its confining 
itself within its proper sphere of action ; 
by practical forbearance, or meekness, 
or humanity ? 

In whatever degree, the most w^anton 
and flagitious tyranny is preferable to 
absolute anarchy ; and the most flagrant 
abuse of laws, better than the total ab- 
sence of them ; in that degree might Ire- 
land be considered a gainer by the Re- 
formation in its civil policy, which had 
taken place in the reign of James. The 
maxims upon which the government was 



still carried on^ could have no other ten- 
dency , than to keep open and inflame 
the wounds of that country. In the ar- 
ticles of impeachment, exhibited by the 
Commons of England against Lord 
Strafford^* we find it attributed to him^ 
that^ in a public speech^ before many of 
the Irish nobility and gentry, he had de- 
clared, that Ireland was a conquered na- 
tion, and that the King might do with 
them what he pleased. To this charge 
he answers, that " It might be fit enough 
in him to remember them of the great 
obligation they had to the King and his 
progenitors, who suffered them, being a 
conquered nation, to enjoy freedom and 
laws, as their own people of England/'' 
It is difficult to determine when and how 
this conquest was effected ; but not at all 

State Trials, vol. — 730. It was a peculiarity 
in the fate of this able but imperious and tyrannical states- 
man, that, having richly deserved death, it was at last 
unjustly inflicted on him ; and that he fell a victim to a 
violation of law greater than any of which he had him- 
self been guilty. 



129 

difficult to foresee, that such a princi- 
ple, if acted upon, must tend to the ut- 
ter subversion and ruin of the kingdom. 
But this furnishes a clue to the conduct 
of the government in Ireland ; and Straf- 
ford was well entitled to all the benefit 
which could be derived from pleading 
the practice of former deputies, as an 
excuse for his own. Those nnheard-of 
forfeitures, and that displacing of the 
antient inhabitants, to make way for 
fresh colonies, or plantations, as they 
were called, were now succeeded by a se- 
ries of measures, calculated to perpetu- 
ate confusion and discontent. We are 
to recollect that at this period there were 
in Ireland more than a hundred Catho- 
lics to one Protestant :^ yet were they 
treated with a degree of irritating con- 
tempt, as if they were an insignificant 
part, instead of the great majority of the 
nation. A free gift of 120,0001. having 



* Curry, 108. 



130 



been offered to the King^ in the name of 
his subjects of Ireland, and this sum 
being continued as a rate of assessment, 
it was proposed to raise the whole sum 
in future upon the CathoHcs alone, by 
putting the statute of uniformity in strict 
execution. Charles assented to the plan, 
and ordered presentments of recusants 
to be made throughout the kingdom, and 
fines were imposed on the juries vvho re- 
fused to find them. To this, as a state 
provision, Strafford objected ; remarking, 
that if it took that good effect for 
which it was intended, which was to 
bring the Irish to conformity in religion, 
it would come to nothing, and so would 
prove a covering narrower than a man 
icould wrap himself in."'^ 

Strafford's expedients for raising a re- 
venue, though more efficient, were equall}^ 
exceptionable. Upon his first arrival in 
Ireland, he summoned a parhament; and, 

^ Strafford's State Letters, fol. 47. Ciirr}', p. 100. 



131 



by issuing his commands, under the 
shape of letters of recommendation, and 
by most violent interference in corpora- 
tions, procured what he considered a set 
of quiet and governable men. Strafford 
was well aware that the King had given 
to the Irish, in 1628, a solemn promise, 
that in their next parliament, (which 
was that now assembled,) he would re- 
dress certain specific grievances under 
which they groaned. But sincerity and 
adherence to promises, were virtues not 
much in esteem with Charles, or his de- 
puty in Ireland. Strafford was not 
ashamed to hold out, that, if the sup- 
plies were granted, the King would con- 
firm the promised graces. " Surely,^' said 
he to his new parliament, such a mean- 
ness cannot enter your hearts, as once to 
suspect his Majesty's gracious regards 
of you, and performance with you.'" All 
this while, a much greater meanness had 
got possession of his own heart ; and, at 
the moment of uttering these words, he 

s 2 



132 



had underhand engaged himself to 
Charles, that the graces should never 
pass, and that the grievances, of which 
the Irish complained, should not be re- 
dressed.* 

The importance attached by the Irish 
to these promises, will appear natural, 
when one of these grievances is consi- 
dered. A system of rapine and iniquity 
had for some time prevailed, under the 
pretence of a judicial inquiry into de- 
fective titles. This was one of the fruits 
of the received political doctrine, that 
Ireland was a conquered nation. It was 

Curry, 110. To such conduct the King was 
not only privy, but thought the deputy entitled to his ack- 
nowledgments. 

Wentworth.—— Before I answer any of your parti- 
cular letters to me, I must tell you, that your last public 
dispatch has given me a great deal of contentment ; and 
especially for the keeping off the envy of a necessary 
negative from me, of those unreasonable graces that 
people expected from me. — Straff. State Lett. vol. 1 . foL 
3SL 



133 



unquestionably one of the most impudent 
attempts, and the most impudently pro- 
secuted against private property, that 
was ever heard of. The alarm, whicli 
such a proceeding must have excited, 
may be easily conceived : " false inqui- 
sitions upon faigned titles to estates, 
against many hundred years pos^ssion, 
were procured, and no travers or pe- 
tition of right admitted thereunto ; and 
jurors, denying to find such offices, were 
censured to publique infamie and ruine 
of their estates ; the finding thereof, being 
against their consciences and their evi- 
dences ; and nothing must stand against 
such offices, taken of great and consi- 
derable parts of the kingdome, but let- 
ters patent under the great seale; and if 
letters patent were produced, (as in most 
cases they were) none must be allowed 
valid, nor yet sought to be legally 
avoided /'^^ 

* Remonstrance of the Catholics of Ireland, 1 642* 
3^ppendk to Curry^ No. 5— -Carte's Ormond^ voL 3, 



134 



Now the redress against this grievance, 
which the Cathohcs sought, was sim- 
ply this ; that an act might be allowed 
to pass in Ireland, similar to the English 
act of 21 Jac, 1, by which possession for 
sixty years is made a bar to any title, even 
in the crown. Had there been any con- 
sideration of the peculiar circumstances 
of Ireland, or any wish for the tranquil- 
lity of that country, could a request so 
reasonable have been resisted ? 

It was however not only resisted, but 
these inquiries were pursued by Strafford, 
with every aggravation that insolence 
and avarice could administer. He in- 
formed the King that he should be able 
to find for him a just and honourable 
title to Connaught ; and that the acqui- 
sition to his Majesty, in that province 
alone, would amount to 120,000 acres.* 

^ " Wentworth's project ^vas nothing less," says Lee- 
land, " than to subvert the title to every estate in evesy 



135 



Just and honourable title ! I can find 
none but of that species, which bare- 
faced tyranny, disguising direct fraud, 
by blustering insolence, is but too ready 
to create for itself ; and if this be just 
and honourable, I see not why the rob- 
ber, who rifles a house in the dead of 
night, is a fit subject for criminal juris- 
diction. By these means, 150 patents, 
or titles to estates, were avoided in one 
morning ; which course was continued 
till all the patents in the kingdom, with 
the exception of a few, were annulled 
and vacated.* 

Notv/ithstanding the oppressions from 
this cause, and in spite of the courts of 
wards, and high commission, by which 



part of Connaught, and to establish a new plantation 
throughout the whole province ; a project, which, when 
proposed in the late reign, was received with horror and 
amazement." — Hist, of Ireland, vol. 3. p. 30, 
* RenK>nstrance of the Catholics, &Ci 



136 



the heirs of Catholic noblemen and 
others were destroyed in their estates^ and 
bred in dissolute ignorance,^ the Irish 
were still affectionate and untainted in 
loyalty to their sovereign. They fancied 
he was kept in ignorance of their real 
condition ; that their actions and incli- 
nations were distorted, in reports made 
to him, by the malice of the government 
of Ireland; and what they could not jus- 
tify^ they excused, as springing from 
those embarrassments, to which he was 
now reduced by enemies, common to him 
and themselves. It must be allowed, 
that the patience of a people so harassed 
was put to a severe trial; and that the 
tranquillity of the nation was precarious, 
and depended on a thread. 

But, when Strafford Avas withdrawn 
from the administration, and the trou- 
bles between the King and the English 

* Remonstrance of the Catholics, &c. 



137 



parliament had commenced, some new 
deadly infusions were pom^ed into the 
cup of Irish calamity, which made the 
evils of their present, and prospect of 
their future condition, absolutely intol- 
erable. 

We are now approaching that signal 
instance of retribution, the Irish rebel- 
lion, or massacre, as it is often called, 
of 1641. There is a great load of in- 
famy,^ connected with this transaction, 
to be disposed of somewhere ; and it will 
ever remain a pretext for calumny, or 
an event pregnant with instruction. It 
is perverted to the former use, as often 
as it is imputed for blame to the Irish na- 
tion, or Catholic religion ; it serves the 

* In the Icon Basilike, Charles says, or is made to 
say, " Indeed that sea of blood, which hath there been 
cruelly and barbarously shed, is enough to drown any 
Inau in eternal, both infamy and misery, whom God shall 
find the malicious author or instigator of its effusion/^ 
p. 88, 

^ T 



138 



latter more worthy purpose, when the 
causes in which it origir^ated, are un- 
derstood, and allowed, as they ought, to 
sink deep into our hearts. 

A remonstrance of grievances had at 
length reached the royal ear ; and the 
Lords Justices were enjoined to assure 
the King's good subjects of Ireland, that 
his princely promise, formerly passed 
unto them, should be speedily performed. 
These directions, so far from being fol- 
lowed, were positively disobeyed. When 
Strafford retired from the government, 
he left behind him a regular and well dis- 
ciplined army of 12,000 men: the Eng- 
lish Commons never ceased soliciting the 
King, till he agreed to break it, and w ith 
a most unmeaning capriciousness, to say 
the best of it, prevented him from ful- 
filling the engagements he had entered 
into with the Spaniards, for transporting 
the army abroad. Twelve thousand Ca- 
tholic soldiers, were therefore turned 



1S9 



loose ill Ireland. It is the recorded 
opinion of Charles himself, that, " if he 
had been suffered to perform his engage- 
ments to the Irish agents, and had dis- 
posed of the discontented army beyond 
sea, there is nothing more clear than that 
there could have been no rebellion in 
Ireland, because they had wanted both 
pretence and means to have made oae.^ 

In the absence of the Earl of Leices- 
ter, who succeeded Strafford, as Lord 
Deputy, the powers of government were 
lodged with the Lords Justices, Parsons 
and Borlase ; the former, the projector, 
and president of the court of wards ; 
both already well known to the nation, 
by greedy rapacity, and unbounded ma- 
levolence to the Catholic interests. 

These justices were devoted to the 
Enghsh parliament ; and the depression 

Reliquiae Sac. Car»olinae. p. 273. Curry, p. 147. 
T 2 



140 



of the royal authority, and neglect into 
which its commands had fallen > reduced 
the Irish CathoHcs to despair- It cut off 
their only channel of hope, and filled them 
with the most just and dismal apprehen- 
sions. That virulent and undisguised ha- 
tred of Popery, by which the leaders of 
the English House of Commons were 
distinguished, though we may hope for 
the sake of their fame that it was in some 
degree feigned, was in its effects per- 
fectly real. Was it unnatural for the 
Irish Catholics to remember it with re- 
sentment? Was it an idle fear that the 
establishment of the parliamentary domi- 
nion in Ireland would be followed by 
fresh confiscations and with the utter 
extirpation of their religion? Are we not 
to look in some degree to the savage fa- 
naticism of the Puritans in England and 
their abettors in Ireland, for the causes 
of this rebellion ? 

It was currently reported at this time, 



141 



that a letter from Scotland had been in- 
tercepted, containing an account that a 
covenanting army under General Leslie 
was there prepared for the service of 
Ireland, to extirpate the Catholics of 
Ulster, and leave the Scots sole posses- 
sors of that province. Parsons the de- 
puty, and Loftus the vice-treasurer, had 
been heard to declare that Ireland could 
never do well without a rebellion, to the 
end that the remains of the natives might 
be destroyed : petitions to the English 
House of Commons were prepared by 
them, and signed by thousands contain- 
ing matter destructive to the Catholics^ 
their lives, and estates ; and wagers were 
laid at assizes and other public meetings, 
that within a year there should be no 
Catholic in Ireland.* Hume imputes to 
supineness the indifference displajxd by 
the Irish government to the warnii :gs 
giving them of an approaching insurrec- 

* R^onstrance of Catholics. 



142 



tion. It is impossible not to suspect 
other motives, 

For it is beyond all doubt, that when 
the rebellion had l^'oken out in Ulster, 
both the Irish administration and their 
masters in the English Parliament, in- 
stead of hastening to extinguish, used all 
their endeavours to extend and continue 
it. Charles was deprived of that sup- 
port, which, in the present contests he 
might expect to receive from the ap- 
proved loyalty of the Irish, as long as 
their native country was wasted and torn 
in pieces by internal war. Hence the 
rejection of the King^s repeated offers to 
go in person and quench these flames ; 
hence the refusal of a similar request 
made by Ormond to the Lords Jus- 
tices ; and hence the affected delays of 
the Parliament in providing for that 
service, when the care of the war had 
been devolved by the King upon 
them. 



143 



This rebellion has been usually consi- 
dered as a general, simultaneous^ com- 
bined^ long-premeditated effort of the 
Irish Catholics, originating exclusively 
in rehsious hatred. It seems to answer 
this description in no one respect; and 
that admirable historian Hume, is justly 
chargeable with having relied too blindly 
on a single and very doubtful authority;* 
and, by the height of his colouring, and 
deserved weight of his opinion, of having 
misdirected the indignation of his readers. 

That it Avas not at first general is per- 
fectly clear. It is true that the Lords 
Justices thought fit so to describe it ; but 
it is no less true, that upon a representa- 
tion of the Catholics of the pale, they pub- 
lished a second proclamation explaining^ 
that by the wwds " Irish Papists'' in the 
first, they only meant such of the old 

Sir John Temple. A communication was made 
to Hume upon this subject^ and his answer may be seeia 
in Curry. 



144 

mere Irish in the province of Ulster as 
had plotted 5 contrived, and been actors 
in that treason, and others that adhered 
to them ; and none of the old English of 
the pale or other' parts of the kingdom.^ 

Neither were the risings simultaneous 
nor combined ; that in Ulster taking 
place in October, 1641 ; those in Con- 
naught, Munster, and Leinster, some 
weeks after, and not at the same time 
with each other. It is very doubtful by 
which party, the insurgents or the Scotch 
in Ulster, the first cruelties were com- 
mitted : and whichever had the hateful 
priority, the enormous barbarities of the 
Protestants in the prosecution of th€ 
war, could not possibly be exceeded by 
those of the Catholics.^* It is in vain to 

^ Curry, p. 155, 

f Borlase gives a journal of the services of Sir Wil- 
liam Cole and his regiment of 500 foot, and one troop 
of horse, horn October, 1641, to some time in 1642, 
wherein it appears that Sir William had, during that time^ 



145 



look in Christian Europe for any paral- 
lel to the scenes which were now trans- 
acted ; they strikingly resemble those 
recorded by Las Casas ; and even those, 
if the relation between the contending 
parties be considered, were not so iniqui- 
tous and inhuman. 

Whatever might be the bigotry of the 
Catholic priesthood, this may truly be 
said for them, that it w as defensive. The 
Qxistence of their religion was in danger, 
and what hope was left for the preserva- 
tion of it and their own lives, but in fo- 
menting rebellion? Was it to be ex- 
pected that they should remain unmoved 
amidst the dreadful denunciations which 
were perpetually thundered against them? 



destroyed ^,417 swordsmen of the rebels; and starved 
and famished of the vulgar sort ( zohose goods were 
seized on hy the regiment ) 7>000, — Borlase adds, after 
tliis rate the English in all parts fought." Fol. 11^. 
Curry^ p, 182;, in note. 



146 



They heard of the repeated executions 
of priests in England, which the Parha- 
ment, to gratify the brutal fanaticism of 
the people, allowed. And no sooner 
was the rebellion organized in Ireland, 
than the government ordered that no 
quarter should be shewn to them. 

With respect to the Catholics in gene- 
ral, the rebellion was the effort of a 
nation, surcharged with misery and op- 
pression, and which, by a long train of 
malicious cruelty and injustice, had been 
rendered desperate. The vices of the 
rulers, and not the excesses of the peo- 
ple, are what merit our execration.^ 

^ As Dr. Curry's work is at present extremely scarce 
in this country, I have reprinted that Remonstrance of 
the Catholics referred to in this chapter ; and the reader 
will find it in the Appendix No* I, of this book. 



147 



CHAP. IV- 

Charles II. and James II. 

The Catholics having struggled through 
the dangers to which they had been 
exposed by the aversion or neglect^ 
were now to encounter the still greater 
dangers arising from the partiality of the 
sovereign. During the civil wars, they 
had fought side by side with the cava- 
liers against the same enemies ; and, at 
the Restoration, these parties regarded 
each other with that good-will, which 
usually subsists between those who have 
been partners in the same misfortunes. 
From the very commencement of the 
disturbances, the Parliament had pro- 
scribed the whole body of these religio- 
nists, had violently cut off all hope of 

u 2 



148 



union, and had, from the combined mo- 
tives of hatred and poUcy, courted their 
enmity by every species of calumny and 
injustice. This conduct on the part of 
the ParUament, though it might some- 
what detract from the merit of Cathohc 
loyalty, ensured its continuance; and 
Charles II. could not but feel, that, as 
this valuable portion of his subjects had 
never been induced through fear, so they 
were not hkely to be tempted by interest, 
to abandon the cause of the -sovereign. 

The fate of Charles in early life will 
account, in part, for the defects in his 
character and conduct, which became 
gradually manifest when he had ascended 
the throne of his ancestors. He was by 
nature indolent, profuse, and sensual ; 
ambitious, in common with all monarchs, 
of power, beyond the reach of examina- 
tion and controul. Not that his ambi- 
tion was of the ordinary kind, active, 
tvubulent, or inimical to the repose of 



149 



society; nor was poAver otherwise de- 
sirable to him than as a means, by which, 
immersed in thoughtless ease and inacti- 
vity, he might give way to every perso- 
nal indulgence. The violent death of 
his father, together w^ith the exile and 
ruin of his family, had unfortunately 
thrown him for support, education, and 
advice too much under the care of his 
mother : a woman, however in all other 
respects worthy of the charge, yet ob- 
jectionable, as the zealous adherent of a 
faith, regarded with antipathy by the 
people whom he would one day be called 
to govern. It cannot excite either in- 
dignation or surprise, that a prince so 
young, should survey with feelings of 
admiration, the splendid form in v/hich 
despotism presented itself to him in the 
court of the French monarch. The Ca- 
tholic religion was recommended by the 
influence of his mother, and the prac- 
tice of a people, amongst whom he had 
lived, and whom he always most ad- 



150 



mired. On the other hand. Protestan- 
tism^ under its different shapes, might be 
viewed by him as the cause of calamity 
and source of rebelhon. The sanctified 
jargon, and endless prayers of the Puri- 
tans, had not concealed from a person 
of his penetration^ their factious inso- 
lence and unbounded ambition. The 
treatment he had received from the 
Scotch ecclesiastics, was calculated to 
inspire him with incurable aversion to 
their doctrines and persons. He was 
easily able to discover while amongst 
them, that they approached their sove- 
reign in the humblest postures, only to 
heighten his sense of the intolerable 
thraldom in v hich thev detained him : 
their exhortations vere but a thin dis- 
guise for their malice; their care of his 
eternal welfare only a pretence, under 
which they might launch out into bitter 
invectives, against, what they termed, 
the inicj^uities of his father's house, his 
mothers idolatry, and his own connex- 



151 



ion with malignants.^ To the members 
of the church of England, indeed, the 
3^oung monarch could not raise the same 
objections; neither could even a grate- 
ful mind (which his was not) acknow- 
ledge peculiar obligation. His father 
and that church, in pursuance of com- 
mon objects, bj injudicious support, had 
each contributed to the downfall of the 
other. Charles was not susceptible of 
religious impressions, nor capable of am- 
bitious enterprises in a degree to have 
endangered the happiness of the nation, 
had he succeeded to a limited and tran- 
quil government; but, from the violent 
return in the feelings of the whole peo- 
pie, he was borne to the head of the 
state upon a flood of loyalty, and there 
left without any provision being made to 
prevent the recurrence of former cala- 
mities. 

^ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 414, Sec. 



152 



In this reign those laws passed, against 
which principally the Catholics of the 
present day seek redress, and which haA^e 
operated as a permanent exclusion from 
those rights and distinctions in the state, 
which, as subjects, they consider them- 
selves entitled to enjoy. 

Of these the first is the corporation 
act of 13 Car. II. st. 2. c. 1; the pream- 
ble of which recites, " that, notwith- 
standing all his majesty's endeavours 
and unparalleled indulgence in pardon- 
ing all that was passed, nevertheless 
many evil spirits were still working/^ 
To obviate, therefore, the danger to be 
apprehended from such persons, and to 
provide for the future, that the succes- 
sion in such bodies should be continued 
in the hands of those well affected to 
the existing government, it provides, 
that all then bearing, or who should 
thereafter bear, any office or offices of - 
magistracy, or places, or trusts, or other 



153 



emplojment relating to the government 
of corporations, should, in addition to 
the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, 
take an oath denying the lawfulness, up- 
on any pretence whatever, of taking 
arms against the King, and declaring an 
abhorrence of that traitorous position of 
taking arms by his authority against his 
person. The candidate was also to sub- 
scribe a declaration, that the solemn 
league and covenant was an unlawful 
oath, and not obligatory. 

These were doctrines, and this was a 
league which the Catholics had never 
sanctioned. They, however, in common 
with all Dissenters from the establish- 
ment, were incapacitated by the follow- 
ing clause : 

Provided also, that no person shall 
be hereafter elected, that shall not have, 
within one year next before such elec- 
tion, taken the sacrament of the Lord's 

X 



154 



Supper, according to the rites of the 
church of England/' 

Upon this act it may be observed, 
that to remove from trust and magis- 
tracy in corporations, men placed there 
during the late confusions, was justifi- 
able, from a fair presumption that they 
had been selected on account of prin- 
ciples hostile to the new government. 
Prospectively, to exclude for a reason- 
able time the sects to which they be- 
longed, and which were notoriously in- 
fected with the same principles, was no- 
thing more than a proper precaution. 
But why were Catholics, who were guilt- 
less of their crime, to share their pu- 
nishment? Had they, during the late 
King's reign, disturbed his government, 
or endangered the public tranquillity? 
Had they, under the new establishment, 
hitherto given any just offence, or alarm- 
ed, in any the least degree, the patrons of 
liberty? , As the act passed not under 



155 



the convention parliament, but that 
which succeeded, in which the friends 
of monarchy and episcopacy prevailed, 
it was but a bad omen for the nation's 
happiness. When the legislature with- 
out cause impeached the civil principles 
of this portion of the people, it pro- 
ceeded upon those fatal prejudices which 
ought to have been buried in oblivioUc 

It is the opinion of a very celebrated 
author,* that even James II. regarded 
the Catholics and their religion with 
partiality, chiefly because they might 
be employed as means in his pursuit of 
absolute power. Whatever may be con- 
sidered the most probable solution of 
James's conduct, there can be no doubt 
that this was the case with Charles II. 
The triumph of the royalists, the odium 
which recent events had cast upon re- 
sistance to prerogative, the unguarded 



^ Mr. Fox. 

X 2 



156 

and unsettled state of the constitution ; 
all these were the encouragements to an 
invasion of the liberties of the nation. 
The King's predilection for France, his 
indolent pursuit of pleasure, his aver- 
wsion to account for the public money ; 
these were the motives that induced him 
to the attack, and made their liberties 
a prize of value.^ The Catholics were 
a small but united bodv, whom the un- 
charitable and impolitic hatred of the 
people had thrown into his hands, and 
compelled to look up to him alone for 
security and relief. The church of Eng- 
land, by the assistance of Clarendon, its 
too zealous patron, had already celebrat- 
ed its restoration by a measure of a very 
decided nature. By means of the act of 

^ The King said once^ that he did not wish to be like 
a grand seignior, with some mutes about him, and bags 
of bow-strings, to strangle men as he had a mind to it : 
but he did not think he was a king as long as a company 
of fellows w^ere looking into all his actions, and exam- 
ining his ministers as well as his accounts. Burnet, 



157 

uniformity,^ about two thousand Presby- 
terian clergymen had been ejected from 
their benefices ; and the King took ad- 
vantage of the distress occasioned by the 
act, to pubhsh, in 1662, a declaration of 
indulgence, under pretence of mitigating 
its rigours. This instrument, though 
cautious]}^ worded, carried in it a claim 
to the dispensing power, which the King 
said he conceived to be inherent in him. 
In his speech to the Parliament, which 
sat shortly after the declaration, he told 
them, I will not yield to any, no not 
to the bishops themselves, in m}' liking 
to the act of uniformity ; and yet, if the 
Dissenters will behave themselves peace- 
abh^ I could heartily wish I had such a 
power to use upon all occasions, as 
might not needlessly force them out of 
the kingdom, or, staying here, give them 
cause to conspire against the peace of 
it/'f The House of Commons very pa- 

^ 13 & 14 C. 11. c. 4, 

t Neale's Hist. Pur. Abr. voi. ii. p. oQS. 



158 



triotically remonstrated against the de- 
claration ; and refused to recognize any 
such power in the crown, from a wise 
distrust of the use which mig-ht be made 
of it. But, they neither expressed nor 
probably felt, that laws, when they so 
press upon the subject, that peaceable 
behaviour on his part does not meet 
w^ith reward, nor even relieve him from 
intolerable vexation, are ripe, though 
not for the exercise of a dispensing 
power in the crown, yet for repeal by 
the combined exertions of the legisla- 
ture. They uttered not one sentiment 
of approbation of the ends which the 
King professed to have in view ; on the 
contrary, they preferred another sense- 
less address for putting the laws in 
execution against the Catholics ; and, 
in consequence, a proclamation was 
shortly after issued, though imperfectly 
executed, against Jesuits and Romish 
priests. 



159 

While thus the sound of the hberties 
of the nation was no more grateful to 
the Catholics than that of stripes and 
chains, and nothing was left to them 
but the hard choice of slavery under 
the crown or commons, it seems little 
wonderful, that they should prefer that 
bondage, in which their oppressors would 
be partners, and under which they might 
at least expect an exemption from per- 
sonal insult, and the toleration of their 
religion. The usual consequences flow- 
ed from these unwise severities ; and the 
royalists regarded the Cathohcs with 
greater favour. Instead of diminishing, 
this body increased in strength and 
numbers; and the Duke of York hav- 
ing openly declared himself a convert,- 
Popery, which had so long been the 
stalking horse, behind which fanaticism 
shot its arrows, became a source of ra- 
tional alarm. The King, in 1672, again 
published a declaration of indulgence, 
grounding it upon his supremacv, and 



160 



by it granted to Protestant Dissenters 
the public exercise of their religion, 
and to the Catholics the exercise of it 
in private houses.^ The Commons, true 
to the principles they had acted upon 
ten years before, demanded a recal of 
the proclamation ; and Charles was re- 
duced to the humiliating extremit}^, be- 
fore the two houses, of breaking the 
seals affixed to it with his own hands, 
riushed with their victory, the Com- 
mons immediately passed the 25 C. II. 
c. 2. so celebrated under the name of 
the Test Act. It is entitled. An Act to 
prevent the dangers which maj^ happen 
from Popish recusants, but its provisions 
are general. By it, every person ad- 
mitted to an\^ office, civil or military, 
or receiving any pay, salary, fee, or 
wages, by reason of any patent from 
the crown, or having any command or 
trust from the crow^n, shall take the 



^ Hume, 



161 



oaths of allegiance and supremacy in 
open court, receive the sacrament ac- 
X3ording to the usage of the church of 
England, and at the time of taking the 
oaths, deliver a certificate that he has' 
so received the sacrament under the 
hands of the ministers and churchwar- 
dens, and shall then make proof of the 
truth thereof by two credible witnesses 
upon oath. To these requisites is super- 
added, that the party must make the 
following declaration : " I, A. B. do de- 
clare, that I do believe that there is not 
any Transubstantiation in the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper, or in the ele- 
ments of bread and wine, at or after 
the consecration thereof by any person 
whatever/' The penalty of exercising 
office, without complying with these pro- 
visions, is a disabiUty of suing in any 
court of law or equity, being guardian 
of any child, executor or administrator 
of any person, of taking any deed of 
gift, or of bearing any public office, 

Y 



162 



together with a fine of five hundred 
pounds. 

That the CathoUcs were now just ob- 
jects of jealousy, cannot be disputed. 
They were inseparably united to a 
court, w^hich, in its foreign engagements, 
was at least acquiescing in an attempt to 
crush the religion of Protestants in ge- 
neral ; and at home, was prosecuting an 
insidious, but regular design against the 
public freedom. The savage hatred of 
their Protestant fellow-countrymen, had 
at all times, and at none more than the 
present, rendered to the Catholics, the 
enjoyment of their civil and religious 
liberties, wholly incompatible. That the 
duty of self-preservation might now re- 
quire, that a broad line should be drawn, 
between subjects of the same state, it 
would be uncandid to denv ; but, in the 
spirit of the same candour we must ad- 
mit, that Protestant more than Catho* 
lie bigotry, had created this fatal ne- 



( 



16S 

cessity. And if ever there was a law 
proceeding from the patrons of freedom, 
which required in its principle and frame 
the collateral aid of a crisis of circum- 
stances to justify its origin, the Test Act 
is that measure. Withdraw those cir- 
cumstances, and it is a monument of in- 
justice and oppression. 

For, we may observe, that in the Cor- 
poration Act, the legislature had select- 
ed a compact, partly religious, partly 
civil, and certain strictly civil tenets, 
which had recently prevailed. The obli- 
gation of the league and covenant, and 
the doctrine of taking arms by the 
King's authority, against his person, 
Avere very proper subjects of abjuration; 
because, from the prevalence of them, 
the government might at any time be 
endangered, as it had once been over- 
thrown. To refuse the sacrament, only 
proves, that a candidate is not a mem- 
ber of the church of England ; to re- 

Y 2 



164 



fuse the declaration^ only establishes, that 
a man is a Catholic. It was perhaps al- 
lowable, when the Corporation Act pass- 
ed, to measure the civil principles of a 
citizen by his antecedent religious ha* 
bits, because the recent convulsions had 
shewn how intimately dependent they 
were upon each other ; the political te- 
nets of the Puritans especially, appear- 
ing obviously to spring from their reli- 
gious doctrines. But, such a criterion is 
always fallacious, and can only be tem- 
porary. The legislature had formerly 
confined itself within the bounds of its 
province ; and, when proceeding against 
the Catholics, selected those doctrines, 
which, however calumniously imputed 
to them as a body,^ were yet of so 
dangerous a nature, that any citizen 
might be called upon to disavow them. 
In the oath of allegiance, 3. Jac. i. the 
party was to declare, that he abhorred 
the damnable doctrine, that a Prince, 
excommunicated by the Pope, might 



165 



be murdered by his subjects ; and, that 
the Pope had power to absolve any one 
from oaths taken to his sovereign. But, 
in the present instance, without reference 
to any civil doctrines, the legislature 
struck directly at the vitals of the Ca- 
tholic faith, and created a perpetual ex- 
clusion, while the Catholics professed 
their ancient religion. When the crisis, 
in which the nation was placed, had 
passed away, what imaginable connex- 
ion could be found between the belief 
of Transubstantiation, and the civil tenets 
which render a citizen trust w^orthy ? As 
a permanent provision, the Test Act was 
a violation of every principle of just 
government : it thrust all dissenters down 
from their natural level as subjects, and 
left them no possibility of regaining 
their station. As a temporary expedient, 
it might be endured upon the plea of 
necessity ; that necessity was composed 
of all that combination of circumstances, 
in which the nation was then placed ; 



166 



when it ceased, especially if created bj 
tiie Protestants themselves in a great 
degree, what argument can be adduced 
to justify its continuance ? 

If we attend to the conduct of govern- 
ment in Scotland during this reign, vv^e 
shall observe how persecution is uni- 
formly the cause of disalFection, and 
how invariably its effects are the same 
where its degree is the same ; whether it 
is exercised by Catholics against Protest- 
ants, by the latter against the former, or 
by one sect of Protestants against ano- 
ther/^ Under the administration of Lau- 
derdale, at heart a zealous Presbyterian,-!* 
and as zealous a friend to arbitrary 
power, when houses could not afford 
shelter to the conventiclers, they fled into 
the fields ; when hunted from them, they 
retired into their wildernesses, and re- 
nounced allegiance, rather than they 

* Laing Passim. 

t Burnet's Hist, of his own Times, vol. i. p. 140- 



167 



would abandon the exercise of their re- 
ligious duties; and, when soaded still 
farther, they sanctioned all those modes 
of private revenge, which, in similar af- 
flictions, the Catholics alone, of all sects* 
are by some supposed to have espoused. 
Pi^ivate assassination began to be consi- 
dered as allowable.* The covenanters 
retaliated upon the military, some of 
whom they murdered in their quarters ; 
and Sharp, the archbishop, though he 
escaped the aim of Mitchell, was reserved 
for the hands of assassins, whom his un- 
relenting cruelty had rendered desperate. 
His murder was specifically termed, by 
the wilder fanatics, the execution of 
righteous judgments by private men.''" 
When the penalties of treason were de- 
nounced against those who frequented 
these meetings, Cargill and Cameron, 
two of their preachers^ published a de- 
claration, that the King, by his perjuries 
in the breach of his covenanted vows, 

* Hume, vol. viii. p. 114, 



168 



and by his tyrannical government, had 
dissolved their allegiance, and forfeited 
his title to the crown When they took 
up arms, they declared that the}^ fought 
against the King's supremacy, prelacy, 
and popery. As is usual on such occa- 
sions, the cruelties of the governors were 
said to be justified by the obstinacy of 
the governed ; as if any interference with 
conscience was not infamous tyranny, 
and as if the miseries and crimes of those 
Avho resisted such interference did not lie 
on the heads of those who sanctioned it. 

In England the grounds of distrust 
between the King and people continued 
to multiply. That hold which, by the 
scantiness of revenue, the Parliament en- 
deavoured to keep on the King's mea- 
sures, he determined to loosen by his 
secret and base negotiations with the 
court of France. The spectre of popery 
was too familiar, and had lost some 

* gurnet's Hist, of kis own Times, vol. ii. p. 157- 



169 



of its terrors, when the nation was sud- 
denly alarmed by the cry of a plot—a 
cry fatal to the Catholics, who were the 
immediate victims, and nearly as fatal 
as it was disgraceful to those who sup- 
ported it. 

Ebullitions of popular rage, and in- 
stances of national frenzy, proceeding 
from religious causes, are not unknown 
in the history of many nations. But, in 
the prosecution of the popish plot, there 
is such a combination of fraud and cru- 
elty, such a shameful perseverance in 
credulity in the House of Commons, such 
a continued perversion of law in the ad- 
ministration of justice, that, altogether, 
it forms the most disgraceful transaction 
in the British annals. During four par- 
liaments did the representatives of the 
people lend the sanction of their autho- 
rity to this monstrous delusion ; and, by 
rewards and favour, encourage the abo- 
minable perjuries of the most abandoned 

z 



170 



miscreants. In the height of this na- 
tional dehrium, the legislature thought 
proper to introduce another Test, to 
guard against the dangers to be appre- 
hended to the King's person and govern- 
ment; and, by 30 Car, II. stat. 2, c. 1, Ca-s 
tholics were excluded from both houses 
of Parliament. A declaration is by this 
act required from the members, that they 
do not believe in Transubstantiation, and 
that the sacrifice of the mass is idola- 
trous : an act, the origin of which is less 
creditable, cannot easily be imagined. 
By feigning a belief in the plot, and 
yielding to a torrent which he could not 
resist, the King eluded the dangers by 
which he was surrounded. At length, 
having ascertained the strength of his 
own party, and by giving free vent to 
the extravagance of the House of Com- 
mons, having rendered them obnoxious, 
he had with great dexterity prepared 
the means of their overthrow. By the 
sudden dissolution of the Oxford Parha- 



171 



ment/* he in a moment rendered himself 
absolute master of the hves and hberties 
of the people. " No measure/^ says 
Mr. FoXj-j' " was ever attended with 
more complete success. The most flat- 
tering addresses poured in from all parts 
of the kingdom ; divine rio;ht and indis- 
criminate obedience were everj where 
the favourite doctrines; and men seem- 
ed to vie with each other who should 
have the honour of the greatest share in 
the glorious work of slavery, by securing 
to the King, for the present, and after 
him to the Duke, absolute and nncon- 
troulable power.'" At this perilous sea- 
son, those two noble twin-sister patrons 
of national liberty, the Universities of 
England, distinguished themselves in a 
manner never to be forgotten. The Uni- 
versity of Cambridge presented an ad- 
dress, from which the following is an 
extract : " We atill believe and main- 

* lOthJan. 1681. 
f Introductory Chapter, 

z 2 



172 



tain, that our kings derive not their 
power from the people, but from G od ; 
that to him only they are accountable ; 
tfeat it belongs not to subjects to create 
or censure, but to honour and obey 
their sovereign, who comes to be so by 
a fundamental hereditary right of suc- 
cession, which no religion^ no lau\ no 
fault or forfeiture can alter or diminish; 
nor will we abate of our well-instructed 
zeal for the church of England, as by 
law established. Thus we have learned 
our own, and thus we teach others their 
duty to God and the King/' Oxford 
passed her memorable decree, consisting 
of twenty-seven propositions, selected 
from the writings of those who main- 
tained that there was an original con- 
tract, express or implied, between the 
King and people ; and that all authority 
originally sprung from the people ; and 
that when kings subvert the constitu- 
tion, and become tyrants, they may be 
resisted. These, and other propositions 



173 

€f a like nature, they declare to be im- 
pious^ seditious^ scandalous^ damnable^ 
heretical^ blasphemous^ and infamous^ 
to the Christian religion. And yet the 
Catholic religion is to be considered dan- 
gerous, and the established church is 
favourable to civil freedom ! Well might 
Charles, or any other sovereign, be 
pleased, and reply, that "No other 
church in the world taught and practised 
loyalty so cpnscientiously as they did/' 

James II. 

It is hardly possible for any lover of 
his country to contemplate, without dis- 
may, even at this distance of time, the 
condition and prospects of the English 
nation, at the accession of James the 
Second. The victory gained by the late 
King and the royalists, in conjunction 
with the subsequent severities,, had de- 
stroyed, silenced, or dispersed, the lead- 
ers of the Whig or country party. By 



174 



the surrender of the charters^ and other 
arbitrary proceedings , should even a 
Parhament be assembled, it could be 
hardly expected to exert a spirit of in- 
dependence. From the prostitution of 
the courts of law, in whatever cause the 
crown chose to contest with the sub- 
ject, it was sure to prevail. Yet to a 
Prince, whose severity in government 
had already been experienced ; whose 
-bigoted attachment to a religion ab- 
horred by the majority of the people, was 
undisguised ; did the nation submit, not 
merely vfithout reluctance, but with 
every token of joy and exultation. Mere 
intimidation will only imperfectly ac- 
count for the eagerness which all men 
displaj^ed in their professions of attach- 
ment, and tender of their liberties to 
James, on his coming to the throne. 

The pernicious and detestable mode 
of opposing government, and of govern- 
ing, by sham plots, was now felt in the 



most dangerous consequences. The ex- 
treme agitation into which men's minds 
were by these means worked up, had 
either subsided in apathy, or had been 
directed against those, who first had re- 
course to such infamous stratagems. 
The conspiracy by the court, against the 
country party, known by the name of 
the Rye-house Plot, being the last in 
point of time, and better supported than 
Oates's, by proof against the subordi- 
nate agents, had cast a stigma upon the 
principles of liberty, and led many to 
look for safety in strengthening the 
powers of the crown. The doctrines of 
non-resistance, and passive obedience^ 
had been for some time considered by 
the church of England, not simply as 
civil tenets, but as articles of religious 
faith, which they were peculiarly called 
upon, openly to avow, and actively to 
disseminate.^ And, as from their con- 

^ Fox's History, p. 281, In tliiswork, the expec- 
tations of the nation^ because they were unreasonable, 



176 



ducting the education of youth, and 
from their possession of the pulpit, the 
influence of such a body must always 
be very powerful, the present disposi- 
tion of the public mind, must be at- 
tributed in no slight degree to their ex- 
ertions* Which ever w^ay we turn our 
eyes, all seem rushing into servitude; 
and, with a Prince of the most ordinary 
discretion, the triumph over the liberties 
of the nation seems infallible. 



are said to have been disappointed, I shall always 
think that Mr. Fox^s ideas of the plan upon which his- 
tory should be written, and of the style adapted to it, 
were full of genius. The book, imperfect as it con- 
fessedly is, breathes such a spirit of philanthropy, and 
is such a standard of political orthodoxy and wisdom, 
that it will easily recover from any little temporary de- 
pression. Had Mr. Fox but undertaken the task of 
the historian ten years sooner, and completed the reign 
of William, he would have left behind him, the most 
valuable monument that was ever erected by any states- 
man, for the benefit of posterity. 



177 ♦ 



Nothing was heard but the voice of 
Toryism ; the adulation offered to the 
monarch was extreme. The University 
of Oxford again came forward with an 
address, stating, that the religion which 
they professed, bound them to uncondi- 
tional obedience to their sovereign, with- 
out restrictions or limitations. The 
King, a few days after his accession, hav- 
ing palpably violated the law, by levying 
on his own authority the customs and 
excise, which had been settled by Par- 
liament, on the late King, during his 
life, the society of the Middle Temple 
thought proper to congratulate him on 
this particular exercise of his vigour. 
They told him, that, with the deepest 
sense of gratitude, they acknowledged 
his Majesty ''s great goodness, in extend- 
ing his royal care of the government to 
the preservation of the customs ^ which 
had been continually received by his 
royal predecessors for some hundreds 
of years, and never questioned by any 

2 A 



178 



Parliament, unless in that, wherein were 
sown the seeds of rebellion against his 
royal father. They conclude with the 
following affecting prayer : " May there 
never want millions, as loyal as we are, 
to sacrifice their lives and fortunes, in 
defence of your sacred person and pre- 
rogative, in its full extent/'^ The Scotch 

* Tindal's Introd. p. 48. — As the admiration of the 
King, seemed to keep pace in this society with his inva- 
sions of the constitution, it is difficult to conceive where 
they would have found terms sufficiently warm, in which 
to express it, if he had introduced the inquisition, or 
abolisned trial by jury. In the beginning of 1688, they 
again presented an address, in which they say, " As 
thanks ought to be paid your Majesty by all your sub- 
jects, so w^e especially, of the profession of the law, 
have most reason to be thankful for the honour you have 
done us, by asserting your own royal prerogatives, 
which is the very life of the law and our profession : 
which prerogatives, as they were given by God him- 
self ; so we declare, that no power upon earth can di- 
minish them, but they must always remain entire and 
inseparable to your royal person: which prerogatives, 
as we have studied to know^ them, so w e are resolved to 
defend theim, by asserting with our lives that divine 
maxirriy 2l Deo rex a Rege lex," &c. id. p. 54 



179 



Parliament, in its answer totheKing^s 
letter, was determined not to be out- 
stripped in this race of servility. 
Amongst many other professions in the 
same strain, they inform the sovereign, ' 
We can assure your Majesty, that the 
subjects of this, your Majesty's antient 
kingdom, are so desirous to exceed all 
their predecessors in extraordinary marks 
of affection and obedience to your Ma- 
jesty, that, (God be thanked) the only 
way to be popular with us, is to be 
eminently loyal/'^ Knowing the cha- 
racter of James, and the event which 
is to follow, we at first might be tempt- 
ed to imagine, that all this was grave 
irony; and that all parties had com- 
bined to fortify his arbitrary notions, 
that he might be hurried into excesses, 
and thus authorize resistance. On the 
contrary, these high-sounding promises 
are just deductions from Tory prin- 



^ Fox, p. 135. 
2 A 2 



180 



ciples ; and, there seems no real ground 
for imputing, to those who uttered 
them, hypocrisy, as well abject deser- 
tion of duty to themselves and their 
country. 

From this calamitous and prostrate 
condition of the nation, Providence, in 
its signal mercy, had prepared an un- 
looked-for remedy in the character of the 
individual placed at the head of the 
state. 

James had long enjoyed the advan- 
tage, had he been capable of profiting 
by it, of passing through the rank of a 
subject before he became a sovereign. 
While at the head of the government in 
Scotland, he might have observed the 
inefficacious cruelty of applying force 
where the conscience of a people is in- 
terested. In England, the general anti- 
pathy to his particular faith had been 
manifested in a way which ought not to 



181 

have been mistaken ; and his adherence 
to it had already nearly cost him his 
crown. But experience was lost upon 
his contracted understanding. Arbi- 
trary 5 cruel, unforgiving, bigoted, in- 
flexible not only in his ends, but in his 
means — a quality compounded of pride 
and obstinacy, which with his flatterers 
passed for sincerity, seems to have made 
up his whole stock of virtue. Pursuing 
the same criminal desig-ns with his bro- 
ther, he was destitute of those graces of 
manner and conversation, which cajoled 
some, and perplexed all of Charles's op- 
ponents. He neglected his dying in- 
junctions, to abstain from all attempts 
upon the religion and liberties of the 
people; he spurned those counsels of cau- 
tion which the Pope himself recommend- 
ed; he ostentatiously laid bare all the 
sinews and muscles of his tyranny; and, 
having touched to the quick every pre. 
judice of every class of his degraded 
people, compelled them to rally, and was 



182 



easily pushed from a throne, which he 
was so unworthy to fill. 

The extent of his views, with regard 
to the Catholics, is not perfectly as- 
certained. It probably changed with 
the chang;es of his own situation. No 
documents are more authentic, or throw 
more light upon this point, than the 
letters lately published of Barillon,^ to 
his master, Lewis XIV. Thev are the 
secret and confidential representations, 
conveyed by a faithful agent from one 
bigot to another. As it is repeatedly 
expressed by the French Kmg, that the 
principal motive for his interesting him- 
self in the concerns of his English pen- 
sioner, was his anxiet}^ for the exten- 
sion of their common religion, it is not 
likel}^ that the latter would underrate 
his intentions and hopes upon this sub- 
ject. As far as the correspondence is 
carried down (which is only daring the 

la the Appendix to Mr. Fox's Histoiy. 



183 



first year of the reign), James does not 
appear to have proposed to himself any 
thing further, than the procuring for the 
Cathohcs, the free exercise of their re- 
ligion. In a character Hke his, incom- 
petent to balance his duties as a king 
and an individual, one is not sorry to 
find that gratitude to the French mon- 
arch for protection in his early years, 
had any share in the base attachment to 
French interests, which he manifested. 
In one letter,^ we find that James as- 
signed as a reason for his devotion to 
Lewis, qu' il avoit ete eleve en 
France, et mange le pain de votre ma- 
jeste." On the 26th February, 1685, Ba- 
rillon writes to his master, " Ce prince'" 
(James) " m'expliqua a fonds son dessein 
a regard des Catholiques, qui est de les 
etahlii^ dans ime entiere liherte de con- 
science et d' exercise de la religion; c^est 
ce qui ne se pent qu'avec du temps, et 
en conduisant peu-a-peu les affaires a 

9 Appendix to Mr. Fox, l6thJuly, 1685, p. 105. 



184 



ce but. Le plan de sa Majeste Britan- 
nique est d'j parvenir par le secours 
et Tassistance du parti episcopal, qiwl 
regarde comme le parti royal^ et je ne 
vois pas que son dessein puisse aller a 
favouriser les Nonconformistes et les 
Presbiteriens, qu"" il regarde comme de 
vrais republicains/'''^ 

Barillon adds, as his own observation, 
" Ce projet doit etre accompagne de 
beaucoup de prudence, et recevra de 
grandes oppositions dans la suite/^ The 
project of establishing the Catholic re- 
ligion, upon the ruins of the Protestant. 
Barillon treats as impossible in the ex- 
ecution ; and, that men of sense had no 
apprehensions that it would even be at- 
tempted .-f 

But, whatever might be Jameses de- 
signs in favour of the Catholics, it is 

* Appendix to Mr. Fox, l6th July, 1685, p. 32. 
t Appendix, Letter 5. March, p. 43. 



185 



clear, that, in the prosecution of them 5 
he violated every law. and justly de- 
served the severity of his fate. The un- 
successful invasions of Argyle and Mon- 
mouth strengthened the hands of govern- 
ment. The latter of these ill-fated no- 
blemen, having declared, at his execu- 
tion, that he died a member of the 
church of England, was stopped by 
Ken, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, 
and told, that, to be a member of that 
church, he must believe in the doctrine 
of non-resistance. Only death itself 
relieved him from the bishop's zealous 
importunities. It must be observed, 
that Ken Avas one of the seven bishops, 
whose subsequent resistance to James 
was attended with such important con- 
sequences, and of whom five at the 
Revolution refused the oath of alle- 
giance to William, and became the heads 
of the party called Non-jurors.^ 

The five were Saiicroft, Archbishop of Canterbury ; 
Turner, Bishop of Ely; Lake, of Chichester; Ken, 

2 B 



186- 



These invasions furnished the King 
with a pretence for raising and main- 
taining a standing army, into which , in 
spite of the Test Act, he introduced a 
number of Popish officers. Not content 
wdth the exercise in these instances of 
the dispensing power, he stupidly pro- 
claimed it to the parliament w^hen it 
next assembled. The House of Com- 
mons moved and presented an address 
against it ; but were so daunted by the 
King^s reply, that they committed one of 
their members to the Towxr, for merely 
expressing a sentiment of independence."^ 
These submissive servants of the crown 
offered, not only to pass a bill indemni- 
fying the Popish officers from the penal- 
ties they had incurred, but to capacitate 
such others as should be named by the 



of Bath and Wells; and White, of Peterborough. — ^ 
Lloyd, of St. Asaph, and Trelawney, of Bristol, con- 
formed, 

^ " I hope we are all Englishmen, and not to be 



187 



King.^ An act laudable under other 
circumstances than their's, in them a 
proof only of servility. Some resistance, 
however, being made by the peers, and 
even by the bishops, James at first pro- 
rogued, and ultmiately dissolved the par- 
liament. 

It is unnecessary to pursue, in detail, a 
series of m€asures more calculated to in- 
spire pity than indignation. Having 
procured a solemn judgment in favour 
of his dispensing power, the King had 
proved to the people, that, no refuge 
from his tyranny could be expected 
from the administrators of the laws. 
Guided by those harbingers of ruin, his 
priests, he wantonly attacked not only 
the prejudices, but even the private pro- 
perties of his subjects ; an attempt, when 



frightened with a few hard words." Speech of Coke, 
member for Derby. 

^ Tindal's Introduction. 

2 B 2 



188 



large bodies of men are interested, dan- 
gerous to the most established and rooted 
despotism. His proceedings against 
Magdalen College can be ascribed only 
to infatuation altogether unprecedented. 

To all but the most bigoted and igno- 
rant Catholics, it must soon have appear- 
ed how incompetent James was to carry 
into effect the schemes in their favour 
w^iich he had undertaken. Their adhe- 
rence to him was natural, and if not 
praise-^worthy, still less exposes them to 
just reproach. By those indeed who 
deceive themselves, or wish to deceive 
others, it may be represented, that, as 
Popery and tyranny were simultaneous- 
ly the darling objects of the Kings's mea- 
sures, so the Catholics who necessarily 
befriended his exertions in the favour of 
the one, were voluntary abettors also of 
the other. If they were, they shared in 
the guilt of the whole nation. But no 
jTiaa or body of men can be deemed 



189 



friends to slavery Avho have not the 
choice of freedom. That this was the 
situation of the Cathohcs, I have before 
endeavoured to prove. A consideration 
of the present events suggests more for- 
cibly a general observation : — that no 
constitution can, without the greatest 
danger^ detain a powerful body united 
together by so strong a tie as religion, in 
a state of permanent inferiority and dis- 
franchisement. For such a body will 
catch at the prospect of redress from 
any quarter ; and having at all times 
in their apprehension a justifiable in- 
ducement, will lie in wait for the first 
opportunity to rise in rebeUion against 
all orders of the state, or league with one 
to the overthrow of another. To the 
Protestant Dissenters, the promises of 
indulgence were but a snare to inveigle 
them, that they might remain quiet spec- 
tators in the ruin of civil freedom : yet 
so sweet was liberty of conscience, so 
irresistible the prospect of exemption 



190 



from penal laws, that the stratagem for a 
time succeeded : they exalted the pre- 
rogative to as great a height as the Ca- 
tholics or Tories had done, and forward- 
ed designs which would have proved 
fatal to their interests, civil and religious. 
But the views of the Catholics were not 
equally absurd ; the free uncontrouled 
enjoyment of their religion would at least 
be secured to them if James succeeded 
in his plans ; and as for the destruction 
of the constitution, what was it to them 
who had never enjoyed a moment^s peace 
or liberty under it? 

Before we conclude the review of the 
transactions of this reign, it is impossi- 
ble not to observe shortly upon the 
baneful effects of Tory principles of go- 
vernment. 

Whatever sycophants may choose to 
assert, under every monarchy the people 
are more patient of tyranny, than the 



191 



sovereign of restrictions on his power. 
Of the tendencies, of the monarch on the 
one hand towards despotism, and of the 
people on the other towards resistance, 
the former is perpetual, the latter occa- 
sional. To represent monarchy then as 
of divine origin, to hail a human being 
as the breath of our nostrils,'' the 
" anointed of the Lord/' to maintain 
that under the most cruel oppression, no 
resource is left for the subject but prayers 
and tears ; what is it but to inflame that 
contempt for the rights of others, and 
that desire for uncontrouled power which 
rulers so naturally entertain? These 
principles, not having their foundation in 
our nature, are abandoned in emero-ency. 
The miserable James had no warnins: 
given him by others that he might ex- 
pect resistance, and was deluded to his 
ruin by false professions which he had 
not himself the sagacity to distrust. 
How much more noble, how much more 
conducive to the mutual interests and 



192 



tranquillity of subject and sovereign, are 
the opposite doctrines of the Whigs ! 
That resistance to arbitrary power is a 
natural right which cannot be aban- 
doned, is a principle so interwwen in our 
very frame, that it will be acted upon, 
independently of all reasoning, whether 
it be professed or not ; but if professed, 
and held up before the eyes of rulers, 
while it has little effect in making resis- 
tance more frequent, it has a most bene- 
ficial influence in applj'ing that timely 
corrective to ambition, which may ren- 
der resistance unnecessary. Whiggism, 
rightly understood, and sincerely prac- 
tised, raises loyalty from a passion to a 
principle, and if it moderates the power 
of the ruler, ensures its continuance. 



195 



CHAP. V. 

William III. 

The Revolution of I6885 in whatever 
light it may be considered, is the most 
memorable and important event that 
occurs in the annals of this empire. 
But, in all cases, reverence and grati- 
tude, unless informed and discriminate, 
are of little value ; and the nature of this 
Revolution, with the extent of the good 
derived from it, must be understood be- 
fore it can be properly admired. Are 
we called upon to contemplate in silence 
a stupendous edifice of liberty finished 
to our hands, where every thing that 
could contribute to present or future 
use or ornament was arranged ; or are 
we about to examine only the founda- 
tions of civil and religious freedom deeply 

2 c 



194 



laid, which to preserve, perhaps ex- 
tend, and upon which to raise ths super- 
struciuie, has been, and is to be, the 
earnest labour of succeeding ages? The 
wisdom of our ancestors is now frequent- 
ly dishonoured by being emplo^^ed mere- 
ly as a shield to protect the folly of their 
posterity. When any one is too ignorant 
to feel his way firmly, and too indolent to 
solicit information from the most familiar 
sources, he is sure to cry out on the 
wisdom of our ancestors,'' " Quieta 
non movere,'' or, " Noiumus leges Aug- 
lias mutari/' Had the wisdom of our 
ancestors been of this stamp, where 
would have been the Revolution. ? 

Before this great event, the subject 
was possessed of many valuable and 
noble privileges ; and, the Revolution 
was rather an assertion of old, than the 
creation of new rights. The substan- 
tial benefit resulting from it, consisted 
in removmg for ever the veil, by w^hich 



195 



not only" the powers, but the nature of 
the kingly office, had been kept con- 
cealed from the people. Allegiance, 
the tie that connects the subject and 
sovereign, had been hitherto grounded 
upon affection or religion. How un- 
steady and pernicious such supports 
were, recent experience had sufficiently 
shewn. The Revolution, took away all 
importance from the controversy, con- 
cerning the origin of government, by 
estabhshing practically, that, in these 
kingdoms, at least, it was in future to 
be conducted upon the principles of a 
civil contract ; the parties, to which 
were the governors and the governed, 
and the conditions of which, were in 
some instances expressed, and in all 
respects, reciprocal. It violated heredi- 
tary succession, and raised to the head 
of the state, a prince, the creation of 
his subjects, and whose title was literally 
the breath of their nostrils. An event 
this, of incalculable consequence, and 
2 c 2 



196 

of equal and inestimable bene^t to the 
King and the nation. 

The Bill of Eights^* contains, merelj 
for the sake of instance, a selection of 
those rights of the subject, which having 
been grossly violated of late, it was ne- 
cessary to avow. The privileges assert- 
ed, and upon the recognition of which 
the crown was tendered to, and accept- 
ed by William, were highly important. 
To declare on the one side, and acknow- 
ledge on the other, that, the power of 
suspending laws, or of dispensing with 
them, as it had been of late assumed ; 
that any commissions and courts of a 
like nature with the late court of high 
commission ; that the levying money by 
pretence of prerogative, without grant 
of Parliament t that the raising or main- 
taining a standing army, in the time of 
peace; that the imposing excessive 
bail or fines, were illegal acts in th« 

1 W. and M, c. 2, sess-see. 



197 



crown : the assertion of the rights of 
petitioning, of the freedom of speech , 
and of election of members of Parha- 
ment ; the requiring and receiving a pro- 
mise that Parliaments should be held 
frequently — all these provisions, though 
somewhat general, were so many tri- 
umphs to the cause of civil freedom and 
happiness. 

The instinctive principle of self-pre- 
servation overwhelmed all other inferior 
ones for a time, and procured that con- 
currence of parties, to which we owe the 
Revolution itself, and the bloodless cha- 
racter of it. This cause of union being- 
soon removed, the causes of difference 
immediately displayed themselves ; and 
the old parties in the state receded from 
each other with a recoil proportioned to 
the force w^hich liad been employed to 
unite them in one course of action. To 
contend, that the Revolution v\^as not 
only a developement of general priu- 



198 



ciples of freedom^ but that these princi- 
ples were pushed to their utmost Hmits, 
and apphed to the different parts of go- 
vernment, each of which underwent 
calm revision, is to belie all the evi- 
dence of history. The pusillanimity of 
James, in retiring out of the kingdom, 
w^as the accidental circumstance which 
dissolved the government, and threw all 
the powers of the state into the hands 
of the people. To conceive, that the 
exertions of the great men who lived , at 
tlia^t time, have rendered all efforts on 
our part, unnecessary, and unwarrant- 
able, is to attribute too much to human 
wisdom, when acting with deliberation 
and uocontiouled,. much more when 
called forth upon a sudden emergency 5 
like the present. The consequences of 
such a notion are, from an adherence to 
forms to abandon the. spirit of the Revo- 
lution^ and to make its benefits partial 
and temporary, which were intended to 
be universal and perpetual. 



199 



One of the wisest of men^ j^stlj^ re- 
marks, that, many things were done at 
the Revolution, >n direct opposition to 
the principles of it. This observation ^ 
correct in general, is pecuhaily so. when 
apphed to the interests of religion. 
The Tories had in conjunction with the 
Catholics, without the motives which the 
latter felt, of necessity and gratitude, 
abetted the designs of James, against 
the public liberties. When the integrity 
of the Protestant establishments w^as so 
wantonly attacked, the Tories made their 
peace with the Whigs; and, the Catho^ 
lies, though their recent conduct was in- 
finitely more excuseable than that of the 
Tories, were, as usual, made the victims. 
Here again, as on numberless other occa- 
sions, the treatment they received could 
only be justified on the score of instant 
necessity. The security of the govern- 

* Mr. Burke's letter to Sir H. Langrislie. Vol. 6, 
p. S3S, ed, 1S03. 



200 



ed is so imperative a plea, that dan- 
gers to the common interest must be 
redressed from whatever source they 
spring. The real cause of the adherence 
to James, on the part of the Catho- 
lics, which is now the only, was then 
a subordinate consideration. Without 
carrying our views abroad, to the cha- 
racter or power of Lewis XIV. or his 
obvious designs; but confining ourselves 
to England, it may be admitted, that 
any body of men, united by whatever 
motives, to such an individual as James> 
were hostile to the best interests of the 
nation; and though their adherence 
might be morally honourable, it was 
politically a just cause of exclusion and 
depression. 

We learn from the letter^ of Fagel, the 
pensionary, what v/ere the opinions of 
William upon the subject of toleration. 



* SoiBcr's Tracts, vol. 2, p. 5400, 



201 



He was content, it seems, that the Ca- 
tholics here shoula enjoy the same Uberty 
which they enjoyed in Holland ; and 
with respect to the Protestant Dissenters, 
he not only consented, but heartily ap- 
proved of their having an entire liberty 
for the full exercise of their religion, 
without any trouble or hindrance. He 
was, therefore, willing, that the laws, 
called by Fagel penal laws, should be 
abolished; but, was of opinion, that the 
test acts, considered by Fagel not penal, 
ought to be retained. When pressed by 
the example of his own country, Fagel 
is obliged to admit, that in Holland, Ca- 
tholics were allowed to fill military 
offices ; and he justifies this upon the 
ground, that their numbers were not 
great, and upon the eminent services 
they had formerly done in their wars, 
^he pensionary seems to have thought 
that the possession of militar}^ oflices 
w^as not so likely to endanger the state, 
as admission to civil distinctions We 

2 D 



i02 

shall not stop to express an opinion on 
this subject, though we entertain a very 
different one ; nor consider, in what way 
William could extend to the British the 
same liberty enjoyed by the Dutch Ca- 
tholics, when by the test acts they were 
equally excluded from civil and military 
posts. 

Upon this letter of Fagel, we must 
observe, that it was written in answer to 
an insidious application by which James 
intended to reduce William to a dilemma. 
William was extremely unwilling to en- 
gage in any correspondence upon the 
subject of the penal laws ; he saw clear- 
ly, that by avowing his sentiments, he 
ran the risk either of discouraging the 
Protestants in their opposition to James, 
if he declared for the abolition of tests ; 
or if he opposed it, of forfeiting his 
character as the great champion of tole- 
ration. It was the obvious pohcy of 
Wilham to take no part, not to appear in 



203 



the slightest degree to sanction the mea- 
sures of James^ which were now hurry- 
ing him headlong to his rain. It was not 
the so much expressed ^ but the too-justly 
suspected ends which James had in view 
by which the liberties of the nation were 
endangered^ It was not an indulgence 
to tender consciences to which the great 
Whigs of the nation were averse^ but 
the dispensing with the penal laws by 
the King^s declaration, without the con- 
currence of Parliament. Some of the 
sentiments in the very declaration by 
James for liberty of consciences'^ if plac- 
ed in the preamble of an act of parlia- 
ment, would appear as just and gene- 
rous, and enlightened, as could be ut- 
tered by any legislature. There is 
nothing we so earnestly desire, as to 
establish our government on such a 
foundation as may make our subjects 
happy, and unite them to us by inclina- 
tion as well as duty; which we think 

* State Trials, vol. iv. p. 317. 
2 D 2 



204 

can be done by no means so effectually 
as by granting to them the free exercise 
of their religion for the time to come, 
and add that to the perfect enjoyment 
of their property ; which, being the two 
things men value most, shall ever be 
preserved in these kingdoms, as the 
truest methods of their peace and our 
glory* We humbly thank Almighty 
God, it is, and hath long time been our 
constant sense and opinion, that con- 
science ought not to be constramed, nor 
people forced in matters of mere reli- 
gion. It has ever been directly contrary 
to our inclination, as we think it is to 
the interest of government, which it de- 
stroys by spoiling trade, depopulating 
countries, and discouraging strangers ; 
and, finally, that it never obtained the 
end for which it was employed. _ And 
in this we are the more confirmed, by 
the reflections we have made on the con- 
duct of the four last reigns. For after 
all the frequent and pressing endeavours 



205 



that were used in each of them, to re^ 
duce these kingdoais to an exact con- 
formity in rehgion, it is visible the suc- 
cess has not answered the design ; and 
that the difficulty is invincible/'' 

Whatever conclusions may be drawn 
from Fagel's letter, we have another ex- 
position of AYiiliam's views of policy, by 
which the Catholics were to be governed. 
It is contained in a document^ equally 
authentic with the letter, and every way 
worthy of the great mind, and just un- 
standing, of the assertor of the liberties, 
civil and religious, of all Europe. The 
document was drawn up, not in 1687^ 
but in 1696; not when William, w^as 
balancing and securing parties, but when 
he was firmly seated on the throne ; and 
it is no objection to me, that the King, 
instead of Fage], had the illustrious So- 
mers by his side. In a memorial in- 
tended to have been given in during the 

* Lord Somers's Tracts, vol. i. p. 401, &c. 



206 



treaty of Ryswick, and which was drawn 
up by William's direction, he explaining 
himself upon every particular, and ex- 
amining the draught, the King thus ex- 
pressed himself with respect to the Ca- 
tholics : When his opinion was asked 
eoncerning the repealing the laws that 
related to the Roman Catholics, he de- 
clared his thoughts very freely of those 
penal laws under which they lay by 
reason of their religion : he liked the 
motion of repealing them, w^hich might 
have satisfied all those of that commu- 
nion^^ as it did the most moderate of 
them. He did not, indeed, think it ad- 
viseable to repeal those other laws which 
excluded them from sitting in parlia« 
ment, and from offices of trust. This 
proposition, if closed with, would have 
made the Roman Catholics safe and 
easy ; and if they had behaved themselves 
so well upon such a favour as to put an end 
to the jealousies of the nation^ they might 
have pretended to farther degrees of con^ 



207 



fidence with a better grace'' Can they 
ever put an end to the jealousies of the 
nation, if they have not done it in this 
year 1815? 

That no one of the penal laws ah'eadj 
passed against the Cathohcs^ was ever 
abolished bv Wilhain, is notorious; that 
many new ones, of great severity, were 
enacted by him against this body, 
is equally so. We will now see how 
far short of his own notions and 
wishes he w^as able to proceed with re- 
spect to the Dissenters ; and having 
assigned the causes of his failure, be 
able to appreciate justly the nature and 
extent of the benefits derived from the 
Revolution. 

Whatever might be the case with the 
Catholics, the Protestant Dissenters had 
every claim to the protection and favour 
of the legislature. In the reign of Charles 
II. they had supported the Test Act, and 



208 



declared that at a less perilous season they 
would endeavour to deserve the indulg- 
ence of parliament. If they had for a 
time seconded the views of James, they 
had atoned for their error by a zealous 
concurrence in bringing about the Revo- 
lution. Three different plans* suggested 
themselves to William, by which their 
condition might be ameliorated. 1. By 
removing the obstacles arising from non- 
conformity, to admit indifferently all his 
Protestant subjects into civil employ- 
ments. 2. By a comprehension to unite 
the moderate Presbyterians to the church. 
3. To procure ease for scrupulous con- 
sciences, and grant a toleration to dif- 
ferent forms of worship. 

In pursuance of the first of these 
plans, while the bill for settling the new 
oaths was before the House of Lords, 
William took an opportunity, without 
direct reference to the pending bill, of 

^ Tindal, vol. xiii. p. 120, 8vo. ed. 



209 



recommending the subject to their at- 
tention* Two clauses were accordingly 
drawn up; the first general, to take 
away the necessity of receiving the sa- 
crament, to make a man capable of en- 
joying any office, employment, or place 
of trust/^ It was rejected by a large 
majority. The second clause proposed 
to be added, was to prevent the re- 
ceiving the sacrament of the Lord's 
supper upon any other account than in 
obedience to the holy institution thereof; 
and to provide, that any man should be 
qualified for any office, employment, or 
place of trust, who, within a year after 
his admission or entrance thereinto, did 
receive the sacrament of the Lord's sup- 
per, either according to the usage of the 
church of England, or in any other 
Protestant congregation, and could pro- 
duce a certificate under the hands of the 
minister, and two other credible wit- 
nesses/' This was likewise rejected, six 
lords protesting. It will become us to 
^ v E 



210 

considei'j whether the reasoning of their 
protest, though then properly confined 
to the case before them of Dissenters, 
does or does not, at the present day, 
embrace the whole political community. 
After some grounds referring to the dan- 
gers then apprehended from popery, 
they protest. 5. Because mysteries of 
religion, and divine worship, are of di- 
vine original, and of a nature so wholly 
distinct from the secular affairs of politic 
society, that they cannot be applied to 
those ends ; and, therefore, the church, 
by the law of the gospel, ought to take 
care, neither to offend tender consciences 
within itself, nor give offence to those 
w^ithout, by mixing their sacred mys- 
teries with secular interests. 6. Because 
we cannot see how it can consist, with 
the law of God, common equity, or the 
right of any free-born subject, that any 
one be punished without crime. If it 
be a crime, not to take the sacrament 
according to the usage of the church of 



England, every one ought to be punished 
for it, which nobody affirms. If it be 
no crime, those, who are capable and 
judged fit for employments by the King, 
ought not to be punished by a law of 
exclusion, for not doing that which it is 
no crime to forbear. 

This scheme being thus defeated, the 
King was still anxious to effectuate a 
comprehension accordmg to the second 
of the above plans ; and, for this pur- 
pose, a convocation was called. Before 
the Revolution, the members of the 
church had been lavish in their promises 
to the Dissenters, every one of which 
they now unhappily forgot.* This scheme, 
though favoured by the upper house, in 
which were seated some of the ablest 
divines whom the church of England, 

* Be not used as tools to take the laws away, be- 
cause they have been grievous to you. They never 
can be so again. For can they who now court you have 
Ae face to turn them agaui upon you, after they have 
2 E 2 



212 



fertile in able divines, has produced, was 
rendered abortive bj the violence and 
prejudices of the body of inferior clergy. 
In conclusion, the only act passed in 
favour of Dissenters was the Toleration 
Act,* which, as to civil privileges, left 
them where they were, and was at best 
an inadequate reward of important ser- 
vices on the one hand, and an imperfect 
discharge of hopes formerly held out by 
the other* 

These liberal views of William, instead 
of endearing him to a very numerous 



made all this noise for libertv ? And the church of Eng- 
land you may be assured will not any more trouble you ; 
but when a Protestant prince shall come, will join in the 
healing of all our breaches ; by removing all things out 
of the way w^hich have long hindered that blessed w ork, 
&c. A plain account of the persecution novv laid to 
the charge of the church of England, Somer^s Tracts, 
vol; ii. p. 525. 

^ 1 W. and M. c. 18. sess. pri. 



213 

class of his subjects, were one principal 
cause of those factions against his admi- 
nistration, by which it was thwarted to 
that degree, that he was twice on the 
point of abandoning the government, 
and withdrawing to Holland. The body 
of the Tories were stunned by the events 
attending the first success of William, 
and for a time incapable of retarding the 
progress of the Revolution. When they 
recovered their senses, what they could 
not prevent, they determined to embar- 
rass; and it is a perplexing truth for 
those who maintain, that there exists a 
fundamental connexion between our re- 
ligious estabUshment and our free civil 
constitution, that the chief resistance 
which the latter met with proceeded 
from the church, and was grounded upon 
her doctrines. 

For the security of the new settlement, 
the bill for abrogating the oaths of alle- 
giance and supremacy, and substituting 



£14 



others in their room, was passed.^ By it 
the old oath of allegiance was simplified; 
the words, lawful and rightful King/' 
being omitted, that no just ground of 
exception might remain; and the decla- 
ration of not taking arms upon any pre- 
tence against the King, was no longer 
required, — the late events affording, we 
may presume, too palpable a refutation 
of the principles which were formerly 
required to be abjured. 

The new oaths could not be taken by 
the Catholics, the denial of the Pope's 
supremacy in spirituals being still re- 
tained. But, to all Protestants, an obli- 
gation less rigorous, more strictly civil, 
less interfering with any doctrinal point 
of their religion, could not be framed. 
So thoroughly, however, were the doc- 
trines of passive obedience and divine 
commission ingrafted into the principles 
of the national church, that the oaths 

1 We 8c M. c. 8, sess. pri. 



fl5 



were rejected by eight^ spiritual peers, 
five of whom were in the number of 
those w^horn James had committed to the 
Tower. I beg leave no longer to use my 
own words, but those of Tindal, from 
whom the above account is taken. — 
" From this time may be dated the rise 
of the Non-jurors, who, rejecting the no- 
tion of a king de jure, and a king de 
facto, as well as all other restrictions and 
limitations, strictly adhered to the divine 
right of kings, and were the authors of 
all the plots and conspiracies against the 
new settlement, which they refused to 
acknowledge/' 

Nay, we learn from the same autho- 
rity, that by many of the clergy the oaths 
were indeed taken, but with such mental 

^ The eight were, Sancroft, Archbishop of Canter- 
bur}; Turner, Bishop of Ely; Lake, of Chichester; 
Ken, of Bath and Wells ; White, of Peterborough, 
(these were the five sent to the Tower) ; Lloyd, of Nor- 
wich ; Thomas, of Worcester ; and Frampton, of Glou- 
cester. Eight likewise took the oatha. 



216 



reservations and distinctions* as rendered 
them of no avail ; and only afforded them 
greater opportmiities of overthrowing 
those Uberties which they had sworn to 
support, Wilham seems to have had 
but too much reason for lamenting the 
factions and heats within the nation, and 
that the clergy, instead of allaying, did 
rather foment and inflame them.-f The 
Revolution may more justly be said to 
have been imposed upon the church of 
England, than seconded by it. With 
the exception of Charnock, the principal 
conspirators who suffered in the reign 
for plots against the state (of some of 
which the assassination of William made 
the basis) Avere members of the church 
of England, and founded their treasons 
upon her supposed doctrines* What 
these were, may be judged from the dy- 
ing declaration of Ashton: J " As to my 



13 Tindal, 275. 
t Burnet, 

J State Trial, vol. iv. p. 487. Harg. Ed. 



religion, 1 profess, by God's grace, to die 
in the faith in which I was baptized, that 
of the church of England ; in whose com- 
munion (nothing doubting of my salva* 
tion through the merits of my Saviour) 
I have always thought myself safe and 
happy. According to her principles, and 
late much-esteemed doctrine (though now 
unhappily exploded), I have regulated 
my life ; believing myself obliged by my 
religion to look upon my lawful, rightful 
prince (whatever his principles were, or 
practice might be) as God's vicegerent, 
and accountable (if guilty of mal-admi- 
nistration) to God only, from whom he 
received his power, always believing it 
to be contrary to the laws of God^ the 
churchy and the realm^ upon any pre- 
tence whatever, to take up arms against 
him/' In 1695, when the Jacobites had 
determined to commence an insurrection 
by the murder of the King, Sir John 
Freind and Sir William Parkyns were 
convicted of the full oflfence; and at their 

Si' 



218 



execution justified the attempt; notwith- 
standing whichj three Non-juring clergy- 
men had the impudence, pubhcly upon 
the scaffold, to give them formal absolu- 
tion by the imposition of hands.^' 

To recriminate is neither an agreeable 
task, nor effectual in vindicating the 
principles or conduct of the Catholics. 
But, by the perpetual recurrence of many 
churchmen of the present day to what 
passed at the Revolution, it is insinuated, 
that we owe that signal blessing to their 
exertions, and that, in gratitude, the 
church of England is alone entitled to 
our care. To shew how unfounded such 
pretensions are, is necessary, in order 
that we may be induced to reflect how 

^ 14. Tindal. 310—4 State Trials, 599, &c.— 
The Jacobite clergy could not refrain from the ap- 
plication of scriptural texts to their own views of politi- 
cal events, for which the Puritans had been so remarkable. 
On the death of Queen Mary, one of them preached 
from the following : Go now, see this cursed womaii, 
and bury her, for she is a king's daughter," 



219 



equally, when faction combined with re- 
ligion, the principles of all sects have 
been perverted ; how^ little the conduct 
resulting from such perversion can be 
defended; how unfair and uncharitable 
is the triumph of one sect of religionists 
over another. I defy any anti-catholic 
to produce an instance from our history 
where the resistance to the civil govern- 
ment was so unprovoked, or carried to 
more dangerous lengths, than this of the 
Non-jurors. What! when stale accusa- 
tions from the remotest periods are heap- 
ed up to impeach the Catholic principles^ 
is the reputation of the whole body to 
suffer for the conduct of a small part of 
it? or are we to forget that the knife was 
perpetually at their throats, and that 
they w^ere a race hunted out by pro- 
scriptions, and tortured by every species 
of vexation that malignity could devise? 
At the period of history we are now con- 
sidering, a new government had been 
established, though not with unaniniit^^, 
2 F 2 



220 

yet, as every thing had proved, in com-^ 
phance with the wishes of a great majo- 
rity of the people. To what rigours had 
the church of England been exposed un- 
der it? An attempt had indeed been 
made to admit their Protestant fellow 
countrymen to a participation in the 
benefits of the new constitution. This 
had failed. Yet a portion, and a large 
one too, of members of the established 
religion could be found, after the ex- 
perience which the nation had suffered 
of James^'s character, so enamoured of 
slavery, that they were content to seek 
the restoration of it by the murder of the 
new monarch, and at the imminent ha« 
zard of their religion. Are we still to 
be told, that the church of England has 
always been more favourable to freedom, 
than that of the Catholics? I am very 
happy and willing to believe, that by the 
extinction of the house of Stuart, and 
other causes, the loyalty of the church 
of England at the present day is better 



251 



informed than that of their ancestors: 
all that I ask, and which (unless subse- 
quent events repel the proof) common 
justice must grant, is, that the Catho- 
lics may be allowed to shew, that as 
once they shared in the political errors 
of that church, they have partaken of its 
repentance. 

For their resistance to the progress of 
the Revolution, the Irish Catholics could 
shew all those causes, which to a dis- 
passionate mind, render the conduct of 
their English brethren, natural and ex- 
cusable ; and could further plead grounds 
of justification, pecuhar to themselves. 
They might be enemies to William, but 
could not be rebels. When James, by 
his abdication, dissolved the govern- 
ment, were not the Irish free to choose 
between him and William ? Could the 
vote of an English convention, transfer 
their allegiance from one to the other ? 



222 



Bj their submission to James in person, 
he became not only de facto, but de jure, 
their king; and ^vhen, after a resistance 
of more than two years with various 
success, they concluded the articles of 
Limerick, with De Ginckle ; these arti- 
cles were the orioinal and irreversible 
compact between them and the new 
government, to which they submitted. 
This treaty had all the validity which 
divine and human sanction can give to 
transactions of this nature. But it was 
perfidiously violated. Returning under 
the galling dominion of the Protestants, 
instead of protection and adherence to 
stipulations, they had to experience 
nothing but that cruelty and injustice, 
which, when a nation is so unfortunate- 
ly circumstanced, as that all powers of 
government are lodged in a small part 
of its population, to the exclusion of 
the remainder, fear, hatred, and inso- 
lence, usually dictate. In a letter 



223 



written by Burnet,^ during the winter of 
I69O5 we find the maxim avowed^ by 
which that ill-fated country was during 
so many years uniformly governed. 
" All the accounts we have from Ire- 
land, seem to assure us, that the rebels 
will be forced to submit, before the 
winter is done, or perish for want of 
all things. There begins to be already^ 
both a face of trade and justice there; 
and Ireland^ hy the total depression of the 
Irish^ will he within four or five years^ 
in a better condition than ever.'' I can 
only say, God defend all countries from 
such a face of justice as this. Resulting 
from such maxims as this of the bishop, 
the barbarity sometimes sportive, al- 
ways unrelenting, with which the go- 
vernments of both countries, treated the 
Catholics of Ireland in this, and the 
subsequent reign, it is unnecessary for 
me to enlarge upon. It has been al- 



=^ Tindal, 13 vol. p. 42 J. 



224 



ready done in a manner, to which for 
accuracy and ability, I can pretend to 
add nothing.^ 

* By Sir Henry Parnell, in his History of the Pfenal 
Laws, against the Irish Catholics, 1808. 



225 



PART 11. 

From the Reformation to the Revolu- 
tion, the Enghsh government was in a 
state of perpetual agitation; and, this 
period of little more than a centurj^ and 
a half,'^ is the most eventful and instruc- 
tive in its whole history. It includes the 
depression of an old, and the estabhsh- 
ment of a new religion ; the overthrow of 
the ancient foundations of monarchy, 
and the rebuilding of it upon new prin- 
ciples. We observe a political body, 
whose original stamina were vigorous, 
struggling for health, and at length 
casting off those impurities, by which 
its growth was stinted, and strength im- 
paired. We contemplate the human 
mind, long degraded by superstition, and 
lulled in the deceitful calm of ignorance: 

^' 1534—1688. 



226 



then kindled by knowledge, and abus- 
ing the liberty whieh it had acquired. 
We behold, also, the resistance made on 
the part of the governors to the pro- 
gress of knowledge, the necessary failure 
of such resistance, and the mutual be- 
nefit to rulers and the ruled, from 
its ultimate triumph. 

The slow progress of legislation, as a 
science, deserves to be particularly re- 
marked. Nothing but experience has 
been able, effectually to convince states- 
men, that, legislative power, like every 
other entrusted to man, has its limits, 
beyond which it is exerted without any 
effect, or with one that is pernicious. 
The error of our ancestors consisted in 
forcing it into every subject; and, since 
the Revolution, the most decisive, though 
not the most glaring proof of profici- 
ency in political wisdom, has been dis- 
played in the comparative moderation 
with which it has been employed. Within 



227 



the last century, not many instances 
can be produced of new laws made, by 
which the happiness of society has been 
materially promoted, but many mc^ 
salutary consequences have flowed from 
the judgment with which old laws have 
been abrogated, which had been found 
to impede the progress of civilization. 

As the errors of legislators, in the treat - 
ment of religion, have been greater than 
upon any other subject, the effects have 
been proportionably more important 
and lasting. Ignorant prejudices have 
given that degree of animosity to the 
struggles of different sects of Christians, 
by which they have been so eminently 
distinguished. The executive and legis- 
lative powers, exercised by virtue of the 
acts of supremacy, led to a fatal miscon- 
ception of that degree of connexion, 
which ought to subsist between relio;ion 
and government. It seems at first to 
have been thought, that uniformity was 
2 G 2 



228 



indispensable to national tranquillity. 
As each sect firmly believed, that only 
its own members could be good Chris- 
tians, so government was conducted 
upon the persuasion, that only the ad- 
herents of one communion could be 
good subjects. When persecution was 
at work on one side, faction was soon 
enlisted on the other; and thus, this 
period of history is a melancholy reci- 
tal of instances, where religion has been 
bandied about as a pretence, and dis- 
honoured by being employed as an en- 
gine to forward temporal views. 

The dangerous principles imputed to 
the Catholics, displayed themselves, either 
at the period of the original separation 
of the church of England from that of 
Rome, when all the angry passions were 
excited by the spoliation committed on 
ecclesiastical property ; or when they 
w^ere debarred from those common rights 
t)f justice and protection— an exclusion 



229 



from which men of all sects and parties 
have equally resented. Religious causes 
do but imperfectly account even in the 
earlier, and not at all in the later stages 
of this period, for the policy observed by 
the state towards the Catholics, or for 
the conduct of the Catholics to the g;o- 
vernment. The ambition of the House 
of Guise led it to ground upon religion, 
a claim in Mary to tlie crov/n of Eng- 
land ; Elizabeth encountered her by 
commencing a persecution of the Catho- 
lics in the enactment of the penal laws ; 
political motives induced the Stuarts to 
desire a relaxation of them ; political 
motives principally impelled the patriots 
to load the Catholics with calumnies, and 
proscribe their religion. On the other 
hand, it seems unfair and unwise to at- 
tribute the resistance and disaffection 
manifested by these religionists to any 
principles of submission to the Pope in 
temporals, or to the doctrine that faith 
is not to be kept with heretics : for, if we 



230 



adopt such limited causes to account for 
these effects, as disaffection was not con- 
fined to the CathoHcs, we shall be left 
without any solution for the conduct of 
other sects. There must, therefore, be 
general causes to be searched for in our 
common nature which embrace alL 
These seem to be found in a vicious 
system of cruelty and oppression to 
which they were exposed ; and, when ill 
treated, they rebelled not because they 
w^ere Catholics, but because they were 
men, as the Puritans rebelled under 
Charles I. or the conventiclers under 
Charles II. 

Since the Revolution, it is obvious, 
that religion, even as an engine of policy, 
has been pretty much^laid aside in the 
administration of government. Conver- 
sion is no longer thought a duty in the 
magistrate ; diversity of religious opinion 
has been found no obstacle to unanimity 
in support of civil institutions. Before 



£31 



this period, the policy towards the Ca- 
thoUcs fluctuated ; there were seasons of 
alternate ri2:our and relaxation. Tlieir 
conduct was variable also : from the ac- 
cession of the House of Hanover, the 
pohcy has been constant ; that of a le- 
nient execution of the penal laws, and 
latterly the abolition of some of the laws 
themselves. The sentiments of the Ca- 
thohcs have been affected by this change 
of treatment, in a manner, which, whe- 
ther they were Cathohcs or Pagans, 
might have been expected ; and they 
have gone on from submission to ac- 
quiescence, from acquiescence to esteem, 
and from esteem to earnest co-operation 
with the government in all its objects 
and measures. Upon the whole, no ra- 
tional being, judging from experience, 
wishes one step retraced in this path of 
benevolence and conciliation. 

It having already been admitted, and 
acted upon as a principle, that all men, 



232 



when their interest is concerned, can 
keep their civil and rehgious cbhgations 
mutually independent, it seems difficult 
to understand why part of a system of 
legislation, proceeding on an opposite 
supposition, is to be retained, while the 
greater part has been, so much to the 
common benefit, abandoned. The enact- 
ments, from which principally the Ca- 
tholics seek relief, are those passed in 
the reign of Charles II, and which were 
framed in the first moments of the Re- 
storation, or in the height of a national 
frenzy, of which the Catholics were the 
the innocent victims. 

The importance of the subject cannot 
be over-rated. A mass of our fellow- 
subjects, amounting to at least four mil- 
lions, or to a fourth of the population 
of the empire, is placed in a state of in- 
feriority, and excluded from the full en- 
joyment of the privileges of the consti- 
tution. I mention numbers, not with a 



233 



view to intimidate, but to interest hu- 
manity, to dispel apathy, and to en- 
courage a Vvish to rehevCj which so man}^ 
other motives concur to call forth. As 
the religioir of Catholics is not a tem- 
porary objection^ but in all probability 
as permanent as the constitution to vvhich 
they seek admittance, their situation is 
hopeless, if it is at all a sufficient ground 
of exclusion. Degradation below our 
level in society is, in all cases, a punish- 
ment, and even when deserved, is not 
submitted to without pain. Is the irrita- 
tion less when both they who suffer, and 
they who impose it, feel that it results 
from a cause which the former cannot 
prevent, and of which they naturally 
and truly think they need not be asham- 
ed.^ ^ 

^ " I have no reason/' said the virtiions Lord Staf- 
ford upon the scaffold, to be ashamed of my rehgion ; 
for it teacheth nothing but the right worship of God, 
obedience to the King, and due subordination to the 
temporal laws of the kingdom." 

2»H 



234 



To all who will admit, that individual 
distinction has charms, the absence of 
wiiich, hereditary wealth or rank cannot 
supply, I appeal, and desire them to 
reflect upon the condition of one of the 
higher class of English or Irish Catho- 
lics :— -of a gentleman who can look 
back two, three, or four hundred years, 
and trace his ancestors aiding their 
country in the cabinet or the field ; who 
retains perhaps their propertj^, inherits 
their spirit and talents, but cannot reach 
their eminence. With the few of these, 
whom chance lias thrown in my way, I 
feel cut off from the most interesting 
topics of conversation, and debarred any 
freedom of intercourse, because I am 
unwilling to start subjects inflictive of 
mental pain, and which rouse a sense of 
unmerited persecution. 

Nor is the pain to individuals greater 
than the loss to the community, arising 
from the continuance of this system. 



235 



With respect to all professions, eligibility 
to high station is the circumstance which 
confers dignity on the meanest individual 
embarked in them. What Adam Smith 
remarks of one, is true of all ; and where 
the prizes are but few, nothing but the 
fascinations of hope can offer allure- 
ments, to detain the multitudes engaged 
in them. To put a bar across the course 
which any one has to run, which others 
may, but he may not pass, is to lessen 
the value of the exertions of that person 
in the eyes of his fellow-creatures, and 
consequently in his own. Hence it must 
often happen, that a great portion of 
finer talent, which in so large a body as 
the Catholics must necessarily be found, 
is not only lost to the countr}^ but is a 
torment to the possessors. And as the 
hope of advancement is the great stimu- 
lus to excellence in the more active pro- 
fessions, so even if a man should have 
spirit to engage and persevere in them, 
to take from him, perhaps, at an early 
2 H 2 



236 



period of life, the hope of rising to the 
highest honours which his avocation can 
attain, is not an improbable way to ren*- 
der hira unfit for that station which he is 
permitted to hold. 

It is not possible that the present si- 
tuation of the Catholics should not be 
felt and resented by even the lowest and 
most ignorant of that body. Though the 
effects of the disabling statutes do not 
now, in many instances, immediately 
reach them, yet the general indignity 
does. If the substantial injury is felt by 
the higher, there are a thousand petty 
but vexatious consequences resulting to 
the lower classes, whenever placed by the 
legislature in a state which implies distrust 
or neglect. They are at least exposed 
to the insults, if not injuries of those 
who, without better claims, are more for- 
tunately circumstanced; and their minds 
are continued in that state, which is not 
proof against the insinuations of design- 



...J 



237 



ing men, who, exaggerating their grounds 
of discontent, shake their fidehty, and 
corrupt their civil principles. 

This large deduction from the happi- 
ness of individuals, and this serious and 
certain loss to the public weal, should in- 
duce us to examine accurately the me- 
rits of the system creating them. It is 
undeserving of support, miless its advo- 
cates can shew, v/ith absolute certainty, 
that at present the evil is counterba- 
lanced by advantages strictly resulting 
from it; or with a probability approach- 
ing to certainty, that equal or greater 
evils will flow from its repeal. The 
ground upon which Catholic disqualifi- 
cation has been and must always be de- 
fended, is, the incompatibility between 
the religious and civil duties of this body 
of men. I have before given my reasons 
for thinking, that in past events any de- 
fective performance of their duties as 
subjects, cannot be ascribed to the prin- 



2SB 

cipks of their religion. To the argu- 
ments deduced from whatever quarter, 
that thej cannot be good subjects^ I op- 
pose the fact that they are such ; and for 
the truth of the fact, refer to the repeat- 
ed admissions of their loyalty and civil 
virtue by the legislature itself.^ Before 
dangerous principles are ascribed to any 
religion^ it should at least be treated as 
indifferent^ and not punished as hostile. 
This has never been the case with the 
Catholic religion since the Reformation. 
It has hitherto been rigorously pu- 
nished, and is not yet impartially exa- 
mined* 

As the defects springing from igno- 
rance were, as we have shewn, common 
and equal amongst all societies of Christ- 
ians ; so we must allow, that an increase 
of knowledge is attended with the same 

^ Preambles to Si Geo. III. c. S£; 33 Geo. IIL 
€.44; also £i and 22 Geo. IIL c. 24^ &c. 



239 



beneficial consequences to all. Though 
the religion of Catholics was the same 
two hundred years ago that it is now, 
and will be two hundred years hence, 
yet they m^y more thoroughlj^ compre- 
hend it; thej^ may, like Protestants, be 
more skilful in reconciling precepts which 
appear to clash with each other, and from 
the w^hole derive results more favourable 
to their own and the general welfare* A 
Protestant ecclesiastic may be allowed^ 
if he thinks it becoming, and is not afraid 
of retaliation, to sneer^ in the narrow spi- 
rit of a sectarian, at the exertions of a 
Catholic, when adjusting the bounds of 
his spiritual and civil obedience. I 
.should hardly think that a statesman 
w^ould partake of such feelings. For, the 
endeavour, if conscientious and conti- 
nued, is an earnest of that temper of 
mind w^hich liberal treatment will influ- 
ence; and a proof of that sense of civil 
obliojation, which makes a citizen trust- 
worth V, Suppose an irreconcil cable con- 



240 



flict to exist between an oath to the 
Pope, and another to the government, I 
say, endear the government to the Catho- 
lics by a full commmiication of its pri- 
vileges ; and, whether we look to the real 
essence of all religion, or to the situa- 
tion in which they will then have been 
placed, there seems little doubt in decid- 
ing which of the two obligations shall 
prevail. 

But, I am very far from admitting, 
that Catholics have been, or are engaged 
in an attempt to reconcile inconsistent 
obligations. On the contrary, as might 
be expected in the case of a learned 
church perpetually engaged in consider- 
ing the authority of councils and the ex- 
tent of the power of its spiritual head, 
nothing seems more accurately defined 
than these subjects; and it is impossible 
not to be struck, even on a slight exam- 
ination, with the scandalous ignorance of 
those, who wish to prescribe to Catholics 



241 



the interpretation to be put on the va- 
rious obhgations they come under. 

Every rational and candid Protestant 
will admit, that some at least of the arti- 
cles of his faith are to be believed, not 
according to the common acceptation of 
the words in which they are convej^ed, 
still less in the extreme latitude to which 
an adversary may push them/^ How 
many valuable commentaries would have 
been lost to the world, if to enlarge upor 
an article of faith, or to explain the sense 
of an oath, were a privilege not to be 
allowed to him that believes the one, or 
takes the other. But this liberty, which 
all of us who have ever thought about our 
faith claim for ourselves, some are unfair- 
ly disposed to refuse to the Catholics. 
It is our sense, and that the most obnox- 

^ It is well known, that the Thirty-nine Articles have 
been subscribed by some of the ablest members of the 
Church of England, not as articles of truth, but of peace, 
which they would neither admit nor oppose. 

2 I 



S4f 

ious, Avhich we insist is the proper one to 
be placed on their decrees and oaths. In 
vain does the Cathohc disclaim it; in 
vain does he assert, that his chvnxh never 
did impose the oath in our objectionable 
meanings or that if ever individuals did 
from ignorance or maUcCy he for himself 
utterly disclaims it. Nothing but an 
abandonment of the tenets, and in fact 
the new moulding of the whole Catholic 
creed and doctrines, will calm the pre- 
tended or real fears of his Protestant op- 
ponent. 

Such is the flexibility and variet}^ of 
the human mind, that, from the same 
premises, the same individual at different 
times, or different individuals at the same 
time, much more different individuals at 
different times, shall draw conclusions 
the most opposite, and carry them into 
practice with unsuspected sincerity. Un- 
less political wisdom be a bubble, it con- 
sists in disregarding the flattering or for- 



243 

iiiidable appearance of men's professions 
and doctrines, and in ascertaining from 
experience and present probability their 
effects and tendencies. If those, whose 
regard to truth we have no just reason to 
impeach, but every reason to respect, 
x:ome and solemnly declare, that, by such 
words as these in an oath of great anti- 
quity, " hsereticos schismaticos et rebel- 
les eidem Domino nostro et successori- 
bus pro posse persequar et inipugnabo,"' 
they only undertake to ^' employ their 
solicitude and efforts in convincing here- 
tics of their errors, and procuring their re- 
conciliation with the Catholic church,''^ 
is it decent, is it wise, to taunt them with 
the inconsistency between the interpret- 
ed and literal meaning? 

Extract of a letter from tbe cai diiial of the college 
of the propaganda to the R. C. Archbishops of Ireland, 
I am, of course, aware, that these words, at the 
request of the Irish archbishops, have been expunged 
from the pontifical oath. But, if they had remained, 
they were virtually so interpreted for the last century by 
4i)ose wlio took the oatli. 

. 2 I 2 



244 



Is this mode of mollifying the aus- 
terity of oaths and articles so miknown 
to our history and rehgion ? I think not. 
When the coronation oath of Scotland^ 
was tendered by the Earl of Argyle to 
William, the King recoiled at those 
words of it, by which he promised to be 
careful " to root out all heretics and ene- 
mies to the true worship of God and 
declared, that he did not undertake to 
become a persecutor. The Commission- 
ers represented, that the clause did not 
import the destroying of heretics; and 
that by the law of Scotland, no man 
was to be persecuted for his private opi- 
nion. In this sense William took the 
oath ; — a sense, as much at variance with 
the words, and as much contradicted by 
former practice, as any interpretation 
can be of the pontifical oath of the Ca- 
tholic bishops. In the thirteenth Article 

Tindal. Burnet. Sir John Hippisley, Speech 1812. 
Appendix, 



245 



of our own church, it is laid down, that, 
^' Works done before the grace of Christ, 
and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not 
pleasant to God;^' forasmuch as they 
spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, nei- 
ther do thev make men meet to receive 
^race, (or as the school authors say) de- 
serve grace of congruitj. Yea, rather 
for that, they are not done as God hath 
willed and commanded them to be done, 
we doubt not that they have the nature 
of sin/'' Surely, some able divine of the 
establishment has done himself great 
credit, and his church great service, by 
an extended explanation of this dogma. 
To leave us with the school authors 
and their grace of congruity, is by no 
means satisfactory ; and in the hasty and 
ignorant view v/e take of the meaning, 
it does, not seem incumbent on any one 
to die a martyr for the truth of this Ar- 

^ And this must mean good works; for bad are not, 
I apprehend, even after justification, pleasant hi the 
sight of God. 



246 



tide. I quote it in order to ask. Is it. 
or is it not a tenet, which must be re- 
duced or qualified by some rational in- 
terpretation or other ? Will not every 
member of the establishment accept of 
a meaning, however tortuous and refined, 
by which it can be reconciled to ordi- 
nary morality ? If this be so, why then 
are we to be so critical with the Roman 
Catholics ? Why to them alone is to be 
denied the liberty of expanding what 
seems contracted, of contracting w^hat 
may be too sweeping, of sweetening what 
appears austere in their canons, their 
oaths, and their declarations ? 

By many alarmists the doctrines of 
the Roman Catholic are considered so 
immeasurably distant, so irreconcileably 
hostile to those of the established church, 
that they, who concientiously profess 
them, cannot form the same estimate 
even of civil duties ; and that the sub- 
jection of one faith to the other is the; 



247 



only means of escaping the evils of reli- 
oious discord. But the wisest and ablest 
champions of the respective churches 
have thought otherwise. Archbishop 
Wake, one of our soundest theologians, 
and whose attachment to the church of 
England was never doubted, has no hesi- 
tation in making; the followino; admission 
to his correspondent, the ecclesiastical 
historian, Dupin. " In dogmatibus pro- 
ut a te candide proponuntur non admo- 
dum dissentimus, in regimine ecclesias- 
tica minus, in fundamentalibus seu doc- 
trinam seu disciplinam spectes vix om- 
nino/' Let us now hear the opinions of 
a Catholic, and that Catholic Bossuet, 
the glory of his church. This great man 
had conceived with Leibnitz, (another 
name of some splendour, I conceive,) the 
project of a re-union between the Catho- 
lie and Lutheran churches f' and it 
being countenanced by the Emperor 

An Address to Protestants, by Charles Butler, Esq. 
p, 18. 



248 



Leopold, and several princes of Ger- 
many, was discussed in a series of letters 
between Bossiiet, on the part of the Ca- 
tholics, and Molanus and Leibnitz, on 
the side of the Lutherans. The follow- 
ing passage, in a letter from Bossuet to 
Leibnitz, will shew his hopes of success, 
and the spirit in which the scheme was 
conducted : The Council oT Trent is 
our stay ; but we shall not use it to pre- 
judice our cause. We shall deal more 
fairly with our opponents. We shall 
make the Council serve for a statement 
and explanation of our doctrines. Thus 
we shall come to an explanation on those 
points, in wliich either of us imputes to 
the other what he does not believe, and 
on which we dispute, because v/e miscon- 
ceive each other. This may lead us far ; 
for Molanus has actually conciliated the 
points of the justification and eucharist. 
Nothing is* wanting to him on that side, 
but that he should be avowed. Why 
should we not hope to conclude in the 



249 



same manner disputes less difficult, and 
of less importance/'' There is something 
infinitely delightful, in observing the 
manner in ^vhich noble spirits like these 
conduct discussions the most dehcate 
and refined- 

Not being versed in the ecclesiastical 
history of councils, and avrare of the 
extravagant pretensions of different 
popes, I expected, that the anti-catho- 
lics would have been able to cite one 
canon after another, from councils in 
all ages, lodging extraordinary powers in 
the popes, of dethroning monarchs, and 
exterminating heretics. My surprise was 
great indeed, when I found this head of 
charge dwindled down, and nearly 
confined to the production of the third 
canon of the fourth Lateran council. 
I shall therefore examine this formida- 
ble canon, premising a few remarks 
upon the nature of councils in general, 
and the authority of their decrees, 

2 K 



250 



In early ages, ecclesiastics were almost 
the only persons qualified, by their 
knowledge and habits of life, for offi- 
ces of state ; and accordingly, in our 
6wn history, we find thern appearing as 
guardians of the realm, in the absence 
of the sovereign, chancellors, ambassa- 
dors, and in other eminent stations. 
The popes were acknowledged by all 
Europe as temporal sovereigns ; and to 
them perpetual and voluntary refer- 
ences were made by the other temporal 
sovereigns, upon afxam of the greatest 
moment.^ To this we may refers in 
part, the mixed character of the de- 
crees of general councils. As has beea 
justly said, these assemblies were general 
Parliaments of Christendom, in which 
not only canons of faith and discipline 

^ Ex eodem erga Romanes pontifices venerationis 
aiBfectu, Pi mcipes, et populi non raro in politicis ne- 
gotiis niaximi moment! ad eos confiigerunt^ tanquam ad 
majorem ut existimabant, autoritatem. quae lites et dis- 
sidia facilius posset componere. — De la Hogue, p. 
£6(5. 



251 



were settled ; but, the most important 
questions of civil policy were discussed, 
and the decisions upon them carried 
into effect b j the co-operation of civil 
and ecclesiastical authorities. To this 
very council of Lateran, held in 1215, 
resorted 412 bishops, the oriental Pa* 
triarchy, and ambassadors from the 
Emperors of Germany and Constanti- 
nople, and from the Kings of England, 
France, Arragon, Hungary, Jerusalem^ 
and Cyprus. It was held, 1. for the re- 
covery of the Holy Land; 2. for the 
condemnation of heresies, particularly 
of the Albigenses, and checking their 
excesses ; 3. for the restoration of disci- 
pline.^ 

The Romish church having admitted, 
what to us appears an erroneous funda- 
mental principle, the infalhbility of 
councils, it is perfectly natural, and 
ought readily to be believed, that it i§ 

^ De Ja Hogue. p. 435. 

•3 K 2 



252 



strict and jealous in the rules, by which 
it ascertains what kind of councils, and 
what sort of canons are obligatory. It 
is indeed curious to observe, how the 
Catholics narrow the extent of this pre- 
rogative of councils ; how anxiously they 
fence it in, to prevent the danger of 
having the errors and bad passions of 
men palmed upon their consciences. 

When it has been incontrovertibly 
established, that a council is general, 
or oecumenical, which can only be w^hen 
the whole church acquiesce in it, with- 
out reclamation it is next necessary 
to distinguish whether a canon apper- 
tains to doctrine or discipline. To the 
former alone, is the attribute of infalli- 
bility given. ^' For'% as the illustrious 
Bossuet has remarked, ^' in councils 

? See a collection of passages from Chancellor 
D'Aguesseau, in p. 17, of Appendix to Mr, Evan's 
Letters on the Legal Disabilities of R. C. — Ridgvvay^ 
1813. See also de la Hogue Tract de Eccleg. l65. 



253 



many things are spoken and done, with* 
out much previous deliberation ; bj 
which Cathohcs most unanimously de- 
clare they do not consider themselves 
bound ; many matters, too, are decided, 
which do not belong to the unchange- 
able rule of faith, but are suited to th@ 
varying characters of times, and the 
changeable complexfon of human con-» 
cerns/'^* Consider, therefore, with what 
caution we must tread, when examining 
these records, and extracting what we 
suppose to be tenets of the Catholic 
faith. For a decree of such council may 
have reference to subjects merely secu- 
lar, and consequently temporary, and 
have no relation whatever to faith ; or 
it may contain a canon of discipline, 
and be obligatory only in states, where 
it is canonically received ; or it may 
be a canon of faith, and strictly and 
perpetually binding, I will now give 

* Letters oa R. C. Tracts by R^v. E. Slatw. 



254 

the canon itself, together with a Protes- 
tant and Cathohc explanation of it. 

" Si vero dominus temporalis reqiii- 
situs et monitus ab Ecclesia terram suam 
purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica pra- 
vitate, per metropolitanimi, et caeteros 
comprovinciales Episcopos excommuni- 
cationis vinculo innodetur. Et, si sa- 
tisfacere contempserit infra annum, sig- 
nificetnr hoc summo Pontifici : ut ex- 
tunc ipse vasallos, ab ejus fidelitate de- 
nuntiet absolutos, et terram exponat 
Cathohcis occupandam, qui earn exter- 
minatis^ haereticis sine ulla contradic- 
tione possideant, et in fidei puritate 
conservent : salvo jure domini princi- 
palis, dummodo super hoc ipse nullum 
praestet obstaculum, nec aliquod inipe- 
dimentum opponat : eadem nihilomi- 
nus lege servata circa eos qui non ha- 
bent dominos principales.'^ 



Id est, says de k Hogue ex vi vocis expulsis/* 



255 



In the first place, I find that th^ 
canons, pubhshed amongst the works of 
Innocent III. bearing the name of the 
Decrees of the Fourth Council of Late- 
ran, are by most critics deemed spuri- 
ous.^ In the next place, the council in 
authorizing the Pope to depose feudato- 
ries, did not act or pretend to act by 
the power of the keys, or by apostolic 
authority, but lodged this power in him, 
by consent of the secular princes, who 
were present in person, or by their am- 

* Rev. E. Slater, p. 40. Two of his authorities 
must be allowed by the most bigoted Protestant to have 
some weight. Archbishop Bramhail, in his Schism 
Guarded, ^1. c. 6, observes, " It is as clear as the day, 
that they (i. e. the canons of this council) were not 
made by the council of Lateran.'' Cave, in his Hist. 
Lit. says (p. 696. ed. 1688.) " Arguments, and those 
not despicable, are not wanting, to take away from the 
decrees of this comicil all credit and authority ; nor do 
Ihey appear to have a shadow of synodal authority, be- 
sides what they may have acquired from having been 
digested by Innocent III. and by him proposed to the 
council.'' 



256 



bassadors.* According!}^, in this couri=- 
eily the first and second canons are the 
only doctrinal and dogmatical ones^ 
which obhge all the faithful ; this thirds 
is only a canon of discipline, in which 
faith is not concerned, which no nation 
is bound to receive ; and consequently, 
which lays no obligation upon conscience 
to assent to it.-f- 

This disciplinary canon then, was a 
combined effort of imperial and pontifi- 
cal power, directed against the mesne 
lords of a set of unfortunate men, who 
had rendered themselves universally ob- 
noxious; and enjoined, in certain cases, 
the seizure of their lands, reserving the 
rights of the sovereign or principal lord* 
And the same punishment was to be 
inflicted on those, who had no principal 

* De la Hogue Tract, de Eccles. £66. 
t Dr. Tro}-*>s Letter, p. 25 of Supplementary Appen- 
dix to Sir J. Hippisley's Speech^ 1810. 



257 



lords, but were possessors of frank allo« 
dial domains. 

A Catholic, of the present day, feels 
himself no more obliged to justify the 
spirit of such a canon, than to main- 
tain the validity of the bull of excom- 
munication, fulminated by Pius V. 
against Ehzabeth, neither forming per- 
manent rules of faith, or guides to his 
conduct. 

" I shall not think it necessary says 
Mr. Gregor,'^ " to state at any length 
what the decrees of councils have been; 
the following will afford a sufficient spe- 
cimen/' He then cites the above canon. 
I must confess it does appear quite suffi- 
cient to justify the complaints which the 
Catholics make of the extreme ignorance 
of those of their opponents, who under- 
take to expound their doctrines for 

^ Remarks on the proceedings of the Lords and 
Commons, 1813; p. 29- 

2 L 



them. I have attempted to shew from 
Catholic authorities, with what caution 
and hmitations canons are to be enter- 
tained before they become articles of 
faith. But zealous Protestants never 
dream of tliese tilings ; without any at- 
tention to the history which accompanies 
councils ; careless or ignorant whether 
the canons passed are disciplinary or 
doctrinal ; confounding bulls of Popes 
with doctrines of the church ; in some 
cases not even well grounded in the lan- 
guage in which these documents are 
drawn up,^ they combat religious prin- 

* Lord Keiiyon translates, Nihil temporale deti- 
nentes ab eis/' — who have nothing temporal in their 
character/^ p. 37 ; and this is one of his media of proof, 
that a man cannot be a good Catholic and a good sub- 
ject. Whereas it is merely a prohibition to ecclesiastics, 

holding no temporahties," from secular barons to swear 
fealty for what they did not enjoy. It would not be 
amiss, either if Mr. Gregor would re-consider his trans- 
lation of ^' sanctitas sua benigne annuit ut loco praece- 
dentis juramenti formulae altera subrogetur." He will 
probably find that Dr. Troy is not a more zealous,'* 
but only a more correct translator than himself, p. 35. n. 



259 



dples of their own creation ; and, making 
a hideous caricature, instead of a just 
portrait, say, This is a Catholic ! Mr, 
Gregor, in citing the last words, " eadem 
nihilominus lege servata circa eos qui 
non habent dominos principales,'^ con- 
strues them thus: " and let the same 
rule be observed with respect to those 
who have no principal lords, i. e, repub- 
lics/' Probably, by this time, Mr. Gre- 
gor is aware, that the words no more 
relate to republics, than they do to the 
governments of China or Japan. Lord 
Kenyon,* on the other hand, seems to 
think that sovereigns are meant. For 
we are told by him, that in the great 
Lateran council, as the Romanists call 
it, it is declared, that the Pope may de- 
pose kings, absolve their subjects from 
their oatlis of allegiance, and give away 
their kingdoms. " What may be the 
feelings of the reader,""' (remarks a gen- 



* Observations by Lord Kenyon, p. 37- 

2 li 2 



260 

tleman,^ who seems a good deal more 
coDverBdnt with such subjects than my 
Lord Kenjon), " it is not for me to pre- 
dict; but truth compels me to inform 
him, that the canon, to which the noble 
Lord alludes, contains not a single word 
respecting the transfer of kingdoms, the 
deposition of kings, or the absolution 
of their subjects from their allegiance 
to them.'' 

This noble author is a favourite with 
the Bishop ot Gloucester ; who informs 
nSj-j-' that " Mj Lord Kenyon^'s observa- 
tions on the Catholic Question, demon- 
strate that preponderance of argument 
drawn from law, fact, and expediency, 
neither is on the CathoHc side of the 
question, nor can be, till law and fact are 
totally altered/' I will not conceal my 
opinion because it happens to be totally 

* Review of certain Anti-catholic Publications^ by 
the Rev. John Lingard. Booker. 1813, p. 63. 
f Letter to Lord Somers, p. 138. 



261 



opposite. To me these observations de- 
monstrate something very different from 
what they were intended to prove ; and 
are, indeed, the most extraordinary col- 
lection of paralogisms and mistakes I 
ever remember to have met with. I have 
only room for one of the latter, but it is 
decisive and amusing. To prove this 
Catholic doctrine of deposing sove- 
reigns and transferring allegiance, Lord 
Kenyon descends from councils to living 
authorities ; and selects one of very higk 
eminence, who, though he may have 
often engaged in controversy, was pro- 
bably never dealt v^ith after this fashion 
before. In a work upon the Chief Revo- 
lutions in the Empire of Charlemagne, by 
Charles Butler, Esq. an account is given 
(p. 225.) of the late refusal by the Gal- 
ilean prelates to allow the Pope a power 
of new modelling the church of France, 
in conformity with the concordat entered 
into with Buonaparte. The author ex- 
presses himself as follows : " Such was 



the extraordinary state of things, that no- 
thing short of the dominiuiii altiim. or the 
right of providing for extraordinary cases 
by extraordinar}^ acts of authority, could 
be exerted with effect ; and that donii- 
mum alhim in the spiritual concerns of 
the church, the venerable prelates cannot 
consistently with their own principles 
deny to the successors of St. Peter/'' 
Lord Kenyon, by some unaccountable 
blunder reads,, writes, and prints twice 
dominium alteru?n; and, not at all stag- 
gered by the consideration, that dojiii- 
nium alferum in the above passages^ 
would be downright nonsense; or that 
if it had any meaning Mr. Butler had 
Got left it for him to translate, but had 
distinctly assigned the sense in which he 
had employed it ; not recollecting, " that 
words cannot express a stronger disbe- 
lief of the rights of the Popes to temporal 
power, direct or indirect, or a stronger 
detestation of their claim to it, than is 
expressed repeatedly in the w^ork re- 



263 



feiTed to/'^ He gravely quotes the above 
extract to shew " satisfactorily, from mo- 
dern authorities and modern practice* 
that, as firm an adherence to all these tenets 
exists amongst the present Romanists 
as in the most bigoted times of antiquity/' 

This is an instance of great literary in- 
humanity in Lord Kenyon. It is con- 
siderably worse than the conduct re- 
probated by Mr. Sheridan, of those, 
who ^' treat other men's sentiments as 
gypsies do stolen children, disfigure them 
to make them pass for their ovm;' for 
here Lord Kenyon not onl}^ so disfigures 
a sentiment that it can have no claims of 
paternity upon the author to whom he 
ascribes it, but then discards it himself, 
and turns it adrift into the world, where 
no man in his senses will ever adopt it. 

I have been minute in examining, 

* Mr. Butler's Letter at tlie end of Mr. Lingard's 
pamphlet. 



264 



upon what foundations it has been as- 
sumed by Anti-cathohcs, that a deposing 
power* is acknowledged to reside in 
councils or Popes by the adherents of the 
Romish faith. That it has been exerted 
by different Popes is another question ; 
and very odd it would have been, if this 
and every other extravagant pretension 
had not at some time been advanced by 
them, considering th^circum stances in 
which they were placed. With equal ad- 
vantage to the Catholics, the enquiry 
might be extended to any other doctrine 
wliich they are reproached with maintain- 
ing. It might easily be shewn, that, no 
infallibility is recognised by them in the 
Pope, even when speaking ex cathedra 
that absolution is granted by their priest- 
hood on terms precisely similar to those 
on which our own church allows it ; 
that, secret or auricular confession is 
equally part of the discipline of the mo- 
ther church, and the church of Eng- 

* De la Hogue. De Eccl. p. 376. 



265 



land; so much so^ that when the canorij 
authorizing it in the latter, was cited 
in the House of Commons by Sir J, C. 
Hippisley, it was disclaimed by Mr. 
Wilberforce as belonging to the Church 
of Rome.^' But the prosecution of this 
part of the subject is, I hope, unneces- 
sary. 

It will be observed, that I have occa- 
sionally referred to the work of De La 
Hogue : the weight of this author ap- 
pears to me peculiarl}^ great. He is, it 
seems, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and 
formerly was a professor in that college; 
and is noAv the professor of theology in 
the college of iSlaynooth. To him, 
therefore, principally is entrusted the 
education of those destined to the ser- 
vice of the Catholic Church in Ireland. 

^ Sir J. C. Hippesley's Speech, 1810, p. 46. No Pro- 
testant, since the days of Burke, can pretend to vie witli 
this gentleman in the services he has rendered to the 
Catholic cause by his valuable publications. 

2 M 



§66 



For their use, he has pubUshed, amongst 
other valuable performances, his " Trac- 
tatus de Ecclesi^ Christi/' As was to 
be wished, he is warm, and powerful, and 
pugnacious, in the defence of those 
foundations upon which his church is 
reared. But, on all those doctrines, bear- 
ing in the most remote manner upon the 
civil principles of the Catholics, he is 
equally explicit; and proves, by irrefra- 
gable arguments from scripture, tradi- 
tion, and theological reasons, that loyalty 
and the performance of every civil duty 
are perfectly compatible with, nay are the 
very essence of the Catholic faith. I re- 
Commend him heartily to the Bishops of 
Lincoln and Gloucester, to my Lord 
Kenyon, and Mr. Gregor. 

For example, he proves that Christ 
gave to Peter and his successors, no au- 
thority^ direct or indirect, over the tem- 
poralities of sovereigns; and then the 
V -on elusion follows, that sovereigns never 



267 

can, by the authority of the keys, be de- 
posed, nor can their subjects ever be 
absolved from their fideUty and obe- 
dience.* 

If, from these standard works of theo- 
logy, we descend to the catechisms and 
books of prayer circulated by the priest- 
hood of this church, we may be satis- 
fied, that, being imbued themselves with 
good principles, thc}^ are not inactive in 
the propagation of them. Or if we look 
to the fruits of this religion in the Catho- 
lics of the present da}^, \ve see the same 
harmony in their civil declarations and 
conduct. 

It ought ever to be remembered with 
sentiments of the deepest gratitude and 
respect, that Catholic wrongs were sin- 
cerely commiserated by the enhghtened 
benevolence of that royal mind now so 
unfortunately eclipsed. To justify and 

^ Tract, de Ecc. p. 241. 
3 M 2 



268 



encourage this sentiment, the English 
Cathohcs, in 1789? drew np a declaration 
of their principles. Five tenets are enu- 
merated, which by Protestants they have 
been represented as holding: 1st. That 
excommunicated princes may be de- 
posed or murdered. Snd, That implicit 
obedience is due from them to the de- 
crees of the Popes or councils. Sd, That 
the Pope, by virtue of his spiritual power, 
can dispense with the obligation of any 
compactor oath. 4th, That the priest 
can absolve sins at his will and pleasure, 
oth. That no faith is to be kept with 
heretics. They reject and renounce 
them all. I must beg to refer the reader 
to the declaration itself ; for no words or 
extract of mine can do justice to the 
earnest and impressive manner, in which 
the disavowal is expressed. This decla- 
ration was signed bj^ 1,740 persons, in- 
cluding several peers, and 240 clergymen 
of the Catholic persuasion.^ 

This declaration and protestation will be found in 



269 



That the evidence upon these points 



opinions were held upon them by fo- 



Letters on Roman Catholic Tenets^ by Rev. Edward 
Slater." p. 3. 

' Mr. Gregor has asserted in his pamphlet, that in con- 
sequence of the opposition of the vicars apostolic, the ma- 
jority of the signatm es to this declaration, was subsequent- 
ly withdrawn. Struck w ith the importance of this asser- 
tion, 1 examined the roll at the British Museum, where it 
is deposited. Having looked through ten or twenty yards 
of signatures, and convinced myself of the total inaccu- 
racy of the statement, 1 became ashamed of the trouble 
which Mr. Gregor was giving at that moment to Mr. 
Planta, and desisted from the search. For myself, I 
certainly ought not to complain, as my inquiries on this 
subject brought on a personal acquaintance with the 
gendeman, to whom this work is dedicated. How little 
the Catholics of the present day allow not merely apos- 
tolic vicars, but the spiritual head of their church, to 
interfere with civil obligations, may be seen from the 
instructions given to the agent, deputed by them to ex- 
plain to the court of Rome, their conduct in framing 
this very protestation ; and which, by the kindness of 
Mr. Butler, I am allowed to publish. — See Appendix, 
No. 2. 




mo 



reign ecclesiastical and learned societies. 
In compliance with his wishes, three 
questions were framed and submitted to 
the six universities of Paris, Louvain, 
Douay, Alcala, Salamanca, and Vala- 
dolid. It Villi be observed, that the 
first of the subjoined questions, is in- 
volved in the second tenet, selected and 
denied in the above declaration ; the 
second question corresponds with the 
third of the tenets, and the third with 
the fifth. 

Question 1. Has the Pope or Cardi- 
nals, or any body of men, or any in- 
dividual of the church of Rome^ any 
civil authorit}^, power, jurisdiction, or 
pre-eminence whatsoever, within the 
realm of England? 

2. Can the Pope, or Cardinals, or any 
body of men, or any individual of the 
church of Rome, absolve or dispense 
with his majesty's subjects from the oath 



271 



of allegiance upon any pretext what- 
soever ? 

3. Is there any principle in the doc- 
trine of the church of Rome, by which 
Catholics are justified in not keeping 
faith with heretics, or other persons dif- 
fering from them in rehgious opinions, 
in any transaction, either of a public or 
private nature ?* 

All these questions are vnianimously 
answered bv these bodies in the neg;a- 
live. The sacred facultv of divinitv at 
Paris, not only declares that, neither 
Pope, nor Cardinals, nor any body of 
men, have civil authority within any 
kingdom ; but, that this is the doctrine 
which it has always held, and that it 
has uniformly and zealously proscribed 
the contrary doctrine. The tenet, that 

^ Slater, p. 18. See these answers at length in "a 
(^ollection of Statutes for the relief of the Irish ayd the 
Eoglish Catholics " — Ridgway, 1812, 



272 



it is lawful to break faith with heretics, 
it stigmatizes as so repugnant to com- 
mon honesty, and the opinions of the 
Catholics, that there is nothing of which 
those who have defended the Catholic 
faith against Protestants^ have complained 
more heavily than the malice and calumny 
of their adversaries^ in imputing this 
tenet to them. To the first and second 
question, the university of Douay reply 
in the strongest negative ; and declare, 
that this is the doctrine which the doc- 
tors and professors of divinity teach in 
their schools ; and this all the candidates 
for degrees in divinity maintain in their 
public theses. 

In the answer returned by the univer- 
sity of Louvain, there is a stinging re- 
proof of the ignorant ilhberality of 
Protestants ; and a natural feeling ex- 
pressed, as if an insult had been offer- 
ed to them, in requiring an answer to 
such questions. " Struck with astonish- 



273 



ment/^ say they, " that such questions 
should at the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury be proposed to any learned body , 
by the inhabitants of a kingdom that 
glories in the talents and discernment 
of its natives/' they answer the first 
and second questions absolutely in the 
negative. Proceeding to the third, " in 
perfect wonder that such a question 
should be proposed/' they unequivocally 
answer, that there is not, and never has 
been among the Catholics, or in the 
doctrines of the church of Rome, any 
law or principle which makes it lawful 
for Catholics to break their faith with 
heretics. 

The answers of the Spanish vmiversities 
are more concise, but equally distinct, 
in disclaiming the principles which the 
questions not indirectly impute to the 
Catholics. 



The authority of these documents is 
2 N 



274 

by some attempted to be invalidated, 
from the circumstance of the answers 
having been returned, by v^rhat the Itali* 
ans term the ultra-montane churches. 
From Mr. Pitt, the questions originate* 
ed, and we may conclude, that the par- 
ticular universities were of his selection, 
or received his approbation. But by 
whomsoever the choice was made, it was 
a good one. What was the object of 
these questions, but to receive a confir- 
mation of the civil principles declared 
by the Catholics to be deductions from 
their faith ; and from what public bo* 
dies could this be more properly pro- 
cured than from the Catholic universi- 
ties of the three great Catholic king- 
doms of Austria, France, and Spain ? 
Had the reference been made to Rome 
itself, we. should have heard of mental 
reservations perhaps, or the Catholics 
would have been turned round, because 
the answers had pot been required from, 
the universities from which they have now 
been received ; and to the same candid op- 



275 



poneiits, if answers had been procured 
from both quarters, they would have ap« 
peared unsatisfactory, because appHca- 
tion had not been made to Prussia ; that 
being, as it might have been said, the only 
instance in point, where the religion of the 
sovereign is heretical. There is no end to 
such cavils; and the Catholics may well 
be content with having collected evi- 
dence on this head, which malice cannot 
gainsay, or ignorance long withstand. 

Another step, which the Catholics 
have taken, to remove still farther any ap- 
prehension of danger to the Protestant 
establishment, consists in the alteration 
which they caused to be made in the 
Pontifical oath, taken by Catholic bi- 
shops, on the day of their installation. 
A similar alteration (viz. in expunging 
the words " liaereticos pursequar, &c/' 
above alluded to)* had already been al- 



In page 243* 

2 N .2 



276 



lowed at the instance of Catherine of 
Russia, when she erected the city of 
Mohilow into an archbishoprick of th« 
Roman CathoUc reUgion. This is au- 
thorized by a rescript of Pius VI. dated 
the 23d of June, 1791 5 and expressed 
to be at the representations of the R. 
C. archbishops of Ireland, to whom it 
is addressed. The amended oath con- 
cludes as follows : "I will observe all 
and every one of these things the more 
inviolably, as I am firmly convinced 
that there is nothing contained in them, 
which can be contrary to the fidelity I 
owe to his most serene majesty, King 
of Great Britain and Ireland, and his 
successors on the throne, so help me 
God, and these Holy Gospels of God. 
Thus I promise and engage.''^ 

Those, however, \Vho wish to know 
the avowed sentiments of even the 

* Sir J. C. Hippisley's Sp. 1810. Appx. p. 53. 



277 



church of Rome itself, upon some of the 
questions submitted to the universitieSj 
may be gratified by perusing the ex- 
tract of a letter from the congregation of 
cardinals of the Propaganda, addressed 
to R. C. archbishops of Ireland, accom- 
panying the above rescript, and dated 
23d June, 1791.* 

" In this controversy, a most accurate 
discrimination should be made between 
the genuine rights of the apostolical see, 
and those that are imputed to it, by 
innovators of this age, for the purpose 
of calumniating:. The see of Rome 
never taught that faith is not to be kept 
with the heterodox ; that an oath to 
kings, separated from Catholic commu- 
nion, can be violated ; that it is law- 
ful for the bishops of Rome to invade 
their temporal rights and dominions. 
JFe foo, consider an attempt or design 
against the lives of kings and- princes^ 

Sir J, C. Hippisley's Sp. 1810. Appx. p. 53. 



278 



even under the pretext of religion^ as a 
horrid and detestable crime. 

" His Holiness, Pius VI. has not, 
however, disregarded your requests : and 
therefore, in order to effectually remove 
every occasion of cavil and calumny, 
which, as you write, some borrow from 
the words in the form of the oath of 
obedience, to the apostolical see, that 
bishops are required to take at their con- 
secration, (haereticos, &c. persequar, 
&c.) which words are maliciously in- 
terpreted, as the signal of war against 
heretics, authorizing persecution and as- 
sault against them, as enemies ; whereas 
the pursuit and opposition to heretics, 
which the bishops undertake, are to be 
understood as referring to their solici- 
tude and efforts in convincing heretics 
of their error, and procuring their re- 
conciliation With the Catholic church: 
his Holiness has graciously condescend- 
ed to substitute in place of the ancient 



279 

form of oathj that one which was pub- 
licly repeated by the archbishop of 
Mohilow/' &c. 

In conformity with these principles and 
protestations, foreign and domestic, the 
British Catholics refuse not the oath of 
allegiance,* and abjuration.-j" To the 
oath of supremacy :|; they must object, 
because it requires the renunciation of 
all spiritual authority in the Pope ; 
change the word " spirituaF' into tem- 
poral, and the English Catholics take 
the oath of supremacy in the 31 G. III. 
c- 32. They also promise to maintain 
the succession of the crown, in the heirs 
of the Princess Sophia being protes- 
tants ; and all the above-mentioned po- 
litical tenets supposed to be maintained 
by them, they expressly, and on their 
oaths, abjure. 



^ 1 G. I c. 13. St. 2. t 6 G. III. c. 53, 

% 1 G. I. c. 13. St. 2. 



280 



By the 33 G. III. c. 21. The Irish 
Cathohc expressly engages to defend, 

to the utmost of my power, the set- 
tlement and arrangement of property in 
this country, as established by the 
laws nov\^ in being : I do hereby dis- 
claim, disavoy\', and solemnly abjure any 
intention to subvert the present church 
establishment, for the purpose of sub- 
stituting a Catholic establishment in its 
stead : and I do solemnly swear that 
I will not exercise any privilege to 
which I am, or may become entitled, to 
disturb and weaken the Protestant reli- 
gion and Protestant government in this 
kingdom/' 

Consistently vvith the maintenance of 
their religion, it is impossible for them 
to go farther; and, to use the words of 
one of their addresses,^ the Roman Ca- 

^ Address of R. C. prelates of Ireland^ G6th Feb. 
1810. — Appendix to Sir J. C. Hippisley's Speech, 
p. 17. 



281 



tholics have in fact given security* such 
as we beheve is not demanded by any 
other state from native subjects, and 
beyond which, no pledge can be effec- 
tual, short of the overthrow of their 
consciences, and such other perpetual 
and public degradation of their com- 
munion, as will tend to disquiet the go- 
vernment, notwithstanding an ostensi- 
ble emancipation, by the sense of in- 
dignity on the one hand, and by the 
continuance of suspicion on the other/' 

With respect to the conduct of the 
Catholics, as exemplary citizens of the 
state, since the accession of the House 
of Hanover, I had hoped to have found 
it unnecessary to say a single word. 
I thought it but natural that Lord Ken- 
yon should quote, and praise, and cling 
to Sir Richard Musgrave f' and I con- 

* The first edition of Sir Richard ISIiisgrave's work, 
was dedicated to Lord Cornwallis. Upon reading it., 

2 O 



282 

sidered the historian and his commen- 
tator as well met and matched to- 
gether. But how came a learned and 
venerable bishop^ of the estabhshment, 
in an address to his clergy, to dwell 
upon the effects of Catholic belief, in 
such terms as the following : " We can- 
not forget it was the creed of those, who 
but fifteen years before the reign of his 
present majesty, within this kingdom, 
encouraged a war, which had for its 
object, the total overthrow of the Pro- 
testant government, and the utter exclu- 
sion of the Protestant sovereign, then 
existing,"' &c, — ^' It was the creed of 
those, who within our own memory. 



Lord Corwallis directed his secretary to write to Sir 
Richard, informing him, that had his excellency been 
apprized of the contents and nature of the work, he 
would never have lent the sanction of his name to it ; 
and desiring that in any future edition, the dedication 
might be omitted, l^ord Kenyon, however, pronounces 
it to be a vainly assailed work/* 

* Bishop of Gloucester, p, 26 of liis Charge I S 10. 



283 



within the short period of eleven 3^ ears 
past, in Ireland, instigated a rebellion, 
which a writer of that country declares 
to have been * eminently destructive 
and which he affirms, massacred, with- 
out mercy, all Protestants, men, w^omen, 
and children/^ If these passages merely 
imply that Catholics were engaged in 
those rebellions, they are altogether ir- 
relevant to the purposes for which they 
are adduced ; if they mean any thing 
more, they are absoluteh^ at variance 
w^ith all that bears the semblance of au- 
thentic record. As far as I am aware, 
this is the first time, that the rebellion 
of 1745, hatched in the highlands of 
Scotland, led by Kilmarnock and Bal- 
merino, originating in the absurd Jaco- 
bite principle of hereditary and inde- 
feasible right, combined with personal 
and national attachment, was ever 
brought forward to impeach the loyalty 
of the Catholics. As for the Irish Ca- 
tholics of that day, for the satisfaction 
■ 2 o 2 



284 



of the bishop, I will transcribe from a 
book, to which I have already so often 
referred, the following conclusive answer 
to the charge. In the year 1762, the 
primate of Ireland, Doctor Stone, de- 
clared in his place, upon a debate in 
the House of Lords, that in the year 
1747? afrer that rebellion was entirely 
suppressed, happening to be in England, 
he had an opportunity of perusing all 
the papers of the rebels, and their cor- 
respondents, which wxre seized in the 
custody of Murray, the Pretender's se- 
cretar}^; and that, after having spent 
much time, and taken great pains in 
examining them, (not without some 
share of the then common suspicion^ 
that there might be some private under- 
standing and intercourse between them 
and the Irish Catholics,) he could not 
discover the least trace^ hint, or intima- 
tion of such intercourse or correspond- 
ence in them, or of any of the latter's 
favouring or abetting, or having been 



285 



so much as m^^de acquainted with the 
designs or proceedings of these rebels. 
And what'" he said " he wondered at 
most of all waSj that in all his researches, 
he had not met with any passage, in any 
of these papers, from which he could 
infer, that either their holy father the 
Pope, or any of his cardinals, bishops, 
or other dignitaries of that church, or 
any of the Irish clergy, had either di- 
rectly or indirectly, encouraged, aided, 
or approved of the commencing or carry- 
ing on of that rebellion/ 

And, vvhen upon such a subject as 
that of the Irish rebellion of 1798, w^ith 
such copious sources of information 
within his reach, we find this excellent 
person yielding himself up quietly to 
Dr. Duigenan, it is impossible not to 
consider this as the most romantic de- 
gree of confidence that was ever placed 



^ Dr. Curry's Civil Wars, Sec. p. 551. 



286 



by one individual in the accuracy of 
another. The Bishop of Gloucester Avill 
readily admit that violence of assertion 
must not carry the day ; and that the 
truth of historical facts is established 
more by the weight than the number 
of authorities. He will agree, that Mr. 
Pitt had at least as easy access to au- 
thentic information 9 and was as capa- 
ble of balancing testimony, as the doc- 
tor himself. Yet he certainly came to 
an opposite conclusion ; for he declared 
in the House of Commons, I do not 
consider the late rebellion in Ireland to 
have been a Catholic rebelhon."^ Or, 

^ Sir Henry Panieirs History of the Penal Laws^ 
p. 151, he cites Debates on the Catholic Petition^ 
( Ciithell and Martin) p. 126. 

" I must call to the bar all his Majesty's present and 
late ministers, whom I have heard during their separa- 
tion, and since their coalition those who are favour- 
able, and those who are inimical to the proposed mea- 
sure, concur in declaring that rebellion not to have been 
in its essential character, a Catholic rebellion/' Dr. 



287 

if the bishop will peruse the report of 
the committee of the Irish Houe of Com- 
mons, appointed in 1798? to examine 
the evidence, he will find how widely he 
has erred, when^ to the prevalence of the 
Catholic faith, he attributes the origin or 
object of that insurrection. 

Reverting, then, to their doctrine, their 
declarations, and their conduct, the Bri- 
tish Catholics are entitled to hope that 
the legislature of the United Kingdom 
will continue to interest itself in their 
favour. As the grounds of confidence 
between them and the state, have not 
lately diminished, but multiplied, they 
have a right to expect that the spirit 
which dictated the preamble of the Irish 
act of 17 and 18, G. III. c. 9- may 
still be found to prevail ; and that, as 



Lawrence— Debate on tlie Catholic Question^ 1805. 
Cobbett's Pailiameatary Debates, p. 097. 



288 



that act proposed only to relax the in- 
capacities under which they laboured, 
another may soon be framed , by which 
it may, " fr'om their uniform peaceable 
behaviour for a long series of years, 
appear expedient utterly to ' remove' 
the same, as it must tend not only to 
the cultivation and improvement of this 
kingdom, but to the prosperity and 
strength of ail his majestj^'s dominions, 
that all his subjects of all denominations 
should enjoy the blessings of our free 
constitution, and be bound to each other 
by mutual interest and mutual affec- 
tion/' 

In these kingdoms, the Protestant is 
more widely diffused than the Catholic 
faith; and, by the influence of habit and 
conviction, is as deeply rooted in the 
affections of the people. There has been 
no recent fixing of nevv and unfixing 
of old interests. There is not, as in 
the reign of Elizabeth, a rival estab- 



289 



lished upon one throne of the island, 
invested with claims to another, who 
may distract the Catholics from their 
alleoiance. There is no remnant left of 
the exiled Stuarts, whose interests any 
misplaced gratitude may prompt them 
to advance. 

Of what nature are the dangers which 
can fairly be expected to result from the 
alterations proposed? The only one, 
indeed, that can be stated, is that arising 
from the dependence of the Catholics 
upon Rome ; from the supposition, that 
the head of their religion will be ever 
disposed to attempt, and the Catholics, 
from religious duty, bound to second 
his attempts for the subversion of the 
civil and ecclesiastical establishments of 
this country. Obedience of any kind to 
a power whose interests are not naturally 
identified with those of the state, to 
which they who pay it belong, may be a 
real or an imaginary ground of alarm ; 

2 P 



290 



and isj in either case, a political evil. 
W hatever is the danger to be apprehend- 
ed from the spiritual connexion between 
the Catholics and the Pope, the onlj 
question is, what will be the probable 
eftbct arising from the repeal of the pre- 
sent civil restrictions. Will that danger 
be thereby increased or diminished. 

There is in all men, as it should seem 
by a law of our nature, an unquenchable 
thirst for power, to controul which the 
influence of religion is unequal. On the 
contrary, ecclesiastics, from a jumble of 
carnal and spiritual motives, sometimes 
unintentional and frequently voluntary, 
exhibit this passion raging within them 
at least as violently as the rest of man* 
kind. I admit, therefore, that should 
circumstances ever favour the attempt^ 
any conviction in the Pope, that, the 
obedience of the Catholics was only that 
of Christians to the vicar of Christ, 
would be but a feeble restraint upon his 
endeavours to claim an absolute, instead 



£91 



of a qualified submission. But, every 
aspect, under which the present or future 
condition of the Papal throne can be 
viewed, shews the improbability that a 
court, not often led away from its real 
interests, will ever again find it in the 
assertion of extravagant claims. The 
pretence that foreign kingdoms w^ere 
fiefs of the Holy See, was an assumption 
adapted for, as it was only admitted in, 
the rudest ages. It has been for some 
time very little, and is obviously every 
day less and less the policy of the Romish 
See, to embroil itself in the secular affairs 
of foreign states. The revolution in hu- 
man opinion which has gradually taken 
place, the present state of aociety, the 
diffusion of knowledge — every thing in 
short portends, that, the only security to 
the Pope, for the possession even of the 
royalties of St. Peter is and will be his 

^ " The regalities of St. Peter mean neither more 
nor less than the Pope^s principalities in Italy and 
Avignon/' — ^Dr. Troy's Letter, Suppl. Appx. to Sir 
J. C. Hippisley's Speech. 1810. p. 24. 

2 p 2 



292 



making a temperate use of his power. 
Whatever may be the ambition of these 
ecclesiastical sovereigns in future^ if at 
all under the controul of reason, it will 
be circumscribed by their situation. 
Their throne is now established upon af- 
fection, not fear ; and that affection is a 
tribute willingly paid to a spiritual pas- 
tor, distinguished by virtues becoming 
his station. The haughtiness of Paul, 
or turbulence of Gregorj^ would shake 
to the foundations that power which 
they formerly advanced ; and any un- 
warrantable attempt, built upon the pre- 
cedents of antient times, to commit the 
Catholics against the state, would leave 
the Pontiff an object of ridicule, and 
not of terror to the Protestant world. 

Por, to render temporal claims of 
the Popes formidable to a government, 
they must not only be advanced on the 
one side, but widely admitted on the 
other. But, we find that the Catholic 



293 



faith, as taught in these realms and 
throughout Europe, sanctions no such 
claims. If we look into our own or 
foreign history, we find perpetual in- 
stances in which they have been resisted. 
Oppressed as these religionists were under 
Elizabeth, we have seen that, in the 
most critical event of her reign, the Ca- 
tholics maintained unshaken their fide- 
lity. Even in those bigoted, and, to them, 
calamitous days, did the excommunica- 
tions hurled at her head meet with sup- 
port or countenance? Is this to be 
attributed to the fear of penal laws ? 
This I apprehend is over-rating very 
much their efficacy, or indeed the effi- 
cacy of any human laws whatever. We 
have shewn from historical events, that 
when this monstrous code w^as in full 
vigour, the objects of it easily found 
means to evade, or inducements to brave 
it. What other solution then can be 
given for these facts, but that these 
powers asserted by Popes were so extra- 



294 



TB^gant and repugnant to common reason^ 
that nothing but the delusion consequent 
upon the grossest ignorance^ or the 
bhndness created by the most grievous 
oppression, did ever induce Catholics to 
admit them? Considering their situa- 
tion as infinitely better now than in 
times past, I derive a confident expecta- 
tion, that any the least tendency in a fo- 
reign power to encroach, would be re- 
sisted by them in the outset. Being 
aware, however, that nothing so disturbs 
the judgment as resentment for merit 
over-looked, and injustice perpetuated, 
I would place their reason, affection, and 
religion, on the side of their duty. Hav- 
ing provided these, the strongest ties, by 
which citizens can be united to their 
country, I should feel little anxiety from 
an apprehension, that they would be sus- 
ceptible of infusions, from any quarter, 
prejudicial to its interests. 

I am not ignorant^ that, in the opinion 



W5 



of many, to talk of a. reliance upon the 
affections and gratitude of nationSj is 
idle and childish in the extreme. Their 
theory of government is simple, and con- 
sists in oaths, and bonds, and penalties- 
This -has always appeared to me the wis- 
dom of an exciseman^ and not of a le- 
gislator. If there is one truth, which the 
history of all nations should imprint more 
indelibly than a^nother, it is this; that, 
the security of governments built upon 
fear is imperfect, because fear is not the 
strongest passion of our nature ; but that 
a government, wliich can make the gene- 
ral happiness of all w^ho live under it 
compatible, and interest their affections 
in its support, will be indestructible ; be- 
cause it operates upon those feelings 
which the best, the bravest, and the 
wisest of our kind are certain of pos- 
sessing. 

We are told, too, that the influence 
of the Catholic is infinitely greater than 



296 



that of the Protestant priesthood over 
their respective flocks; that this influ- 
ence will never be directed but to one 
object, and that the aggrandizement of 
their particular church; and, consequent- 
ly, that, by an admission of Catholics 
to the rights of the constitution, we intro- 
duce new subjects of dissension, instead 
of removing any which at present exist. 
Without attempting to deny this superior 
influence, or to point out the difference 
between a priesthood entrenched behind 
law, secure of endowment and pre-emi- 
nence, and one struggling against op- 
position and exposed to jealous censure— 
a situation calculated to create and 
foster an influence over the sect entrust- 
ed to it — I cannot help again and again 
remarking, that our attention should be 
confined to this point ; — whether the re- 
moval of Catholic disabilities will pro- 
bably have the effect of increasing this 
ecclesiastical power, and giving it a 
direction more dangerous than it has at 



present to public happiness? Whatever 
may be the authority of a Catholic 
priest, no Protestant, I apprehend, would 
wish it diminished, w^hile it is employed 
in instructing, reforming, and tranquil- 
lizing an ignorant, and therefore disso- 
lute and turbulent population. That it 
has hitherto been exerted in this manner, 
and in a degree which has called forth 
the repeated thanks of government in 
Ireland, in the most critical emergencies, 
can be proved by evidence incontroverti- 
ble. It is easy for my Lord Kenyon or 
the Bishop of Gloucester to select single 
instances, and those from over-charged 
and doubtful statements, of priests who 
have perverted their spiritual influence to 
support treason and rebellion. But, 
considering the grounds that existed for 
rational discontent, and how easily in- 
flamed the vulgar mind is where relio;ion is 
at all concerned, it is the highest pitch not 
only of absurdity, but of ingratitude, to 
utter insinuations against the Irish priest- 

2 Q 



298 



hood as a body of men. They have had, 
during the last twenty years, in their 
keeping, the keys of a magazine of gun- 
powder, which they might have em- 
ployed for the destruction, but in fact 
have used for the preservation of the 
British government. 

But, supposing, in spite of experience 
and probability, an unfavourable change 
in the morals of the Catholic priesthood, 
will the abolition of the penal laws add 
one iota to their power? On the con- 
trary, it will diminish it, if improperly 
exerted, by enlarging the sphere of civil 
action to the lay Catholics, by creating 
new hopes and prospects to be realized 
only by the stability of the constitution, 
by giving them more to lose, and less to 
gain by any change. 

To that vehement cry of the " church 
in danger,'' we ought, if we understand 
its interests, to turn a deaf ear. That, in 



299 

many cases, it proceeds not from an 
honest anxiety for the church's welfare, 
seems more than probable. AVhether 
raised by laymen or ecclesiastics, it has 
always appeared to me to originate 
in an ignorance of the real foundation 
upon which the influence of any church 
is built, and upon which alone it can be 
supported. 

Actuated by nothing but the spirit of 
truth, I have freely delivered my opinion 
of the political merits of the church of 
England; and have lamented, as uncha- 
ritable* and unwise, the persevering op- 

* I read the following extract from a " Concio apud 
Synodum Cantuariensem sede Paulina habita. Ne di- 
cant (the author is speaking of the Catholics) se mitiores 
esse hodi^, justiores, humaniores ; non jam esse quales 
eos fuisse nostri memorant. Quamdiu enim Tridentina 
ilia invalescat confessio, quamdiu ilia agendi sentiendique 
norma, ad quam omnia exigant, in integro sit, tamdiii 
illos tanquam omnis hiimani pariter divimque juris 
hosies, pertimescerey et d curia et militia arcere necesse 
est." Now St. Paul informs us, that without charity a 
mm is but " as sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal/' 
2 q2 



soo 



position of some of its most distinguished 
members to the Cathohc claims. I trust 
this may be done without a suspicion of 
indecent hostihty, or of latitudinarian 
principles. Beheving, as I sincerely do, 
that its doctrine is the purest draught 
from those fountains, to which all 
Christians in common resort; that its 
discipline is the happiest mean between 
degrading superstition and disgusting 
fanaticism ; and that, combined, it pre- 
sents a scheme of worship, which the 
weakest of mankind may sufficiently 
comprehend, and from which the wisest 
need not recede, I think it a slander 
upon its excellence to suppose, that it 
can dread a competition with any rival 
sect whatever. In a w^ish for its sup- 
port and pre-eminence, I unite cordially 
with my Lord Kenyon. But how is 
this to be effected ? Are we still to de- 
lude ourselves, after all our historical 
evidence, by supposing, that legislative 
or regal interference is equal to the task.^^ 



301 



They may, indeed, hold forth the sha- 
dow of a great name, and, by confining 
to the estabhshed church honour and 
emolument, may keep its ranks full ; but, 
if its real support be the affection and 
respect of the people, can they enchain 
them ? they may, indeed, prop up the 
temple, and great to the eye may be its 
beauty ; but, if deserted by its worship- 
pers, w^here will be its use? If the 
church be in danger, the danger is not 
from without ; it springs from itself, and 
must by itself be cured. We are now 
debating whether the church of England 
can support its reputation, if the civil 
benefits of the constitution are extended 
equally to all vvho live under it. Does 
any intelligent well-wisher to this esta- 
blishment desire that it should appear 
in so invidious a light, as it must, if this 
proposition is to be answered in the ne- 
gative ? If the church wants any thing, 
it wants exertion in its sons to display 
its beauties, by their hves and precepts; 



502 



it wants expansive charity. When an 
Archbishop of Canterbury is found in 
his place, advocating the cause of dis- 
senters, and a Bishop of Norwich as- 
serting the claims of our Catholic fellow- 
subjects, they add, incomparably more 
to the real security of their church, than 
all the penal laws which the wit of man 
ever devised. 

Before I conclude, it may be proper, 
very shortly, to advert to those limita- 
tions in the appointment of Catholic 
bishops, contemplated under the name 
of the " Veto/' It is well known, that 
such limitations were assented to by the 
Roman Catholic prelates of Ireland, as- 
sembled in Dublin in 1799; and, with- 
out any thing having intervened, which, 
to a Protestant, can give any clue to 
their motives, the same prelates, in 
terms equally unexpected and laconic, 
in 1808, declare it to be their decided 
opinion, that it is inexpedient to intro- 



303 



duce any alteration in the canonical 
mode hitherto observed in the nomina- 
tion of the Irish Roman Catholic bishops. 
Here the matter ends ; only that we are 
a little relieved by the declarations of 
the Catholic primate. Doctor O'Reilly, 
that, in his mind, and in the opinion of 
several other prelates, the danger, from 
adhering to their former concessions, and 
granting the Veto, is of a temporary 
nature, and resulting from existing cir- 
cumstances ; and, not a little disgusted 
with the caperings of Dr. Milner, who 
declares he will die a thousand times, 
rather than yield this point. With a strong 
conviction of the propriety of govern- 
ment, on the one side requiring, and of 
the Catholic church, on the other, sub- 
mitting to some mode in the election of 
their bishops, by which the state shall 
have that security, which has been grant- 
ed to all foreign states, Protestant as well 
as Cathohc, I will only observe, that the 
Veto forms neither necessarily, nor in- 



304 



deed properly, a part of the present 
question. Should, at a future time, a 
plan be brought forward to raise the 
Romish church establishment from its 
present state of destitution, and bind it 
more firmly to the government by mak^ 
ing it feel its liberality ; at that season, 
when the state is dispensing its bounty, 
can these modifications be regularly dis- 
cussed. Nor should such a plan be con- 
sidered as trenching upon the integrit}^ 
wealth, or security of the church of Eng- 
land. If, as there is every reason to an- 
ticipate, the Romish church will prove, 
that it has been only from necessity the 
adversary of the establishment, it must 
be provided with means to shew itself 
a friend. We are to consider that the 
Catholic clergy are the spiritual pastors 
of above four millions of men, and it can 
never be sound policy to make their 
sordid poverty a svibject of odious com- 
parison. But the Romish church feels 
not the grievance of the Corporation or 



505 



I'est Acts; nor is it the real petitioner: 
the lay Catholics are the party aggrieved ; 
it is not their province to give or refuse 
the Veto ; and to make it a stumbling- 
block in the way to a repeal of civil dis-^ 
abilities, is to raise a difficulty which it is 
not in their power to overcome. The 
fair objections to them, are their w^ant 
of loyalty, and the maintenance of dan- 
gerous political or religious doctrines : 
that they have sufficiently refuted these 
charges I have before shewn ; and, having 
removed these impediments, they have 
done all that the state can require, or 
they perform- 

If the Catholic cause were not one 
which every Protestant should lay to hi^ 
heart, being neither more nor less than 
whether he is or is not accessary to the 
infliction of a great quantity of misery 
and oppression, it would undoubtedly 
receive prejudice from the recent con- 
duct of its advocates in Ireland. Such 

3 R 



306 



travelling out of the record at all their 
meetings, for the purpose of abusing 
every thing and every body; such im- 
pudent attempts upon the freedom of 
opinion of all their most tried and able 
friends, lead one to suspect that this 
question at length has got into the hands 
of those who hope for notoriety, rather 
from dissension than concord. Thus 
it is in all these cases; the good and 
the temperate, having made their ap- 
peal to wisdom and humanity, relax 
from the struggle; and either from in- 
dolence trust to the slow workings of 
reason in their opponents, or are scared 
by the violence of those, who, under 
the mask of friendship, are anxious 
only to be distinguished. These last^ 
careless whether they advance or defeat 
those interests which they are ostensibly 
convened to promote, perplex and in- 
flame others who are more ignorant and 
turbulent than themselves. In fact, I 
r^d in some Protestant pamphlet^ that, 



307 



to use the author's own phrase, he 
thought it high time to threaten the 
threatener/' Will rational Catholics or 
Protestants leave this interesting cause 
in such hands? As a contrast to this 
vehemence, I beg leave to recommend 
the Catholic pamphlets which I have 
frequently quoted, and to which I feel 
deeply indebted. They will be found 
well-written, learned, temperate, and jvi- 
dicious in the extreme. 

I have now completed that course of 
inquiry which I proposed in the outset ; 
and the following appear the legitimate 
conclusions which it presents. The penal 
system v/as originally built upon this 
fundamentally vicious principle — that 
the civil power may prescribe to a nation 
its faith. In pursuance of this princi- 
ple, the sovereign first, and afterwards 
the legislature, punished non- conformity 
in doctrine, and even in religious cere- 
2 R 2 



308 



monies as a crime ; and did thus essen^ 
tiallv violate the rights of conscience. 
The penal laws were so destructive of the 
peace and happiness of those exposed 
to their fury, that the alarming prin- 
ciples and disaffection of the Catholics 
may be almost entirely ascribed to their 
operation. To the same cause may, in a 
very considerable degree, be attributed 
the overthrow of the monarchy and the 
church in the reign of Charles I. The 
virulent animosity displayed by the Pro- 
testants in the middle of the seventeenth 
century against the Catholics, was the 
result, more of a rancorous theological 
hatred of their religious, than of any 
well-grounded aversion to their civil 
principles. A long continued and shock- 
ing system of misrule alone accounts 
for the rebellions of the Irish. At the 
Restoration, the embers of religious dis- 
cord were still kept alive, and the civil 
principles of the Catholics were im-% 



309 



peached before they had been tried. As 
the only prospect of amendment in the 
situation of these rehgionists dawned 
from the crown, loyalty became their 
exclusive passion. To a complicated 
slavery, civil and religious, under the 
constitution, they preferred civil slavery, 
with the enjoyment of religious freedom 
under- the crown. The liberal and en- 
lightened views of William, were im- 
peded and frustrated by the faction and 
intolerance of his subjects ; and religious 
liberty was still left by our ancestors of 
the Revolution, as the superstructure to 
be reared by posterity upon the founda- 
tions then laid. Since the accession of 
the House of Hanover, in proportion 
as the state has extended protection, 
have the Catholics evinced attachment. 
Their rehgious doctrines are innoxious ; 
their pohtical principles pure; their 
conduct meritorious. The evil which 
the remiiant of the penal system pro- 



510 



duces, is direct and palpable; the dan- 
ger to be apprehended from its re- 
peal, is neither probable nor commensu- 
rate. There seems therefore a right in 
the Catholics to a free and full participa- 
tion of all the privileges of the constitu- 
tion, and to admissibility to all the 
functions and offices of state, to admi- 
nister which uprightl}^, and thus pro- 
mote the general good, is the most just 
^nd noble object of human ambition. 

We have been told, that, to exempt 
the potatoe garden of the Irish cottager 
from tithes, will be a more effectual 
means of conciliation than the removal 
of statutory disabilities, to which he is 
indifferent. No advocate of the Catho- 
lic claims considers, that the granting 
them will operate as a panacea against 
all discontent ; or is disposed to deny, 
that there is a long list of substantial 
grievances in the condition of Ireland, 



311 



to which, it is to be hoped , the legisla- 
ture will give their most deliberate 
attention. But the admission of the Ca- 
tholics to their full snare in the govern- 
ment, is the first great step. It will give 
property its natural influence, and the 
constitution the support resulting from 
it. It will afford to talent a useful and 
adequate direction. It will separate the 
moderate and well-disposed from the ill- 
designing, and those who can live only 
in troubled waters. It will be a late, 
but honourable compensation to the 
adherents of a religion, which has been 
too much a victim to political craft and 
popular calumny. It will be a return 
richly merited by a nation, w^hich has 
paid more than its tribute of blood 
in defence of public happiness. It will 
be a triumph to legislation itself: for 
it is time to exhibit it, not merely 
as a string of penalties, but as a dis- 
penser of rewards ; ^ud for legislators to 



312 



shew that thev are v/ilhng to work tiport 
affection, as well as on fear. And thu^ 
will all be enabled, strenuously, to de- 
fend the civil constitution of their coun- 
try, without any drawback from the con- 
sideration, that it withholds from them 
a part of its beneficial influence ; and 
be inclined to address it continually 
with the fervent prayer of '^^ esto per- 
petua/^ 



THE KKD. 



APPENDIX. 

No. 1. 



313 



This remonstrance will hereafter be quoted as authen- 
tic evidence, as well on account of the solemnity of 
its delivery and acceptance, as because of the severe 
examinations it underwent in the Irish Hou&e of Com- 
mons, (from which all the Roman Catholic members 
had been expelled) from the 8th to the 12th April, 
1644, and then dismissed without the least disproof 
or contradiction of any of the numerous grievances 
it complains of ; and without any resolution or mo- 
tion, after a debate of so many days, that bears the 
slightest appearance, either of a censure or denial of 
the facts it contains. — Curry, p. 237, in note. 

[From Cartels Orm, vol. m.] 

The Remonstrance of the Catholics of Ireland^ de- 
livered to his Majesty'' s Commissioners at Trym^ 
nth March, 1642. 

To the King's most excellent Majestic. 
Most gracious soveraigne, 
WEE your Majestie's most dutiful! and loyall sub- 
jects, the Catholiques of your highness kingdome of 
Ireland, being necessitated to take armes for the pre- 
servation of our relligion, the mainetenance of your ma- 
jestie's rights and prerogatives, the naturall and just 
defence of our lives ?.nd estates, and the liberties of our 
comitry, have often since the beginning of these trou- 

2 s 



314 

bles attempted to present our humble complaynts unta 
your royall view ; but we are frustrated of our hopes 
therein by the power and vigilance of our adversaryes, 
(the lords justices and other ministers of state in this 
kingdome) who by the assistance of the malignant par- 
tie in England, now in armes against your royall per- 
son, with less difficultie to attain the bad ends they pro- 
posed to themselves, of extirpateing our religion and 
nation, have hitherto debarred us of any access to your 
majestie's justice, w^hich occasioned the effusion of much 
innocent blood, and other mischiefs in this your king- 
dome, that otherwise might well bee prevented. And 
whereas of late notice was sent unto us of a commission 
granted by your majestic to the right honorable the lord 
Marques of Ormond and others, authorising them to heare 
what we shall say or propound, and the same to transmitt 
to your majestic in writeing, which your majestie's gratious 
and princely favour, we finde to bee accompanied with 
these words, viz* (albeit we doe extremely detest the 
odious rebellion which the recusants of Ireland have 
without ground or colour raysed against us, our crowne 
and dignitie) which words wee doe in all humilitie 
conceive to have proceeded from the misrepresentations 
of our adversaries ; and therefore doe protest, we have 
been therein maliciously traduced to your majestie, hav- 
ing never entertayned any rebellious thought against your 
majestic, your crowne, or dignitie ; but allways have 
beene, and ever wall continue, your majestie^s most 
faithfull and loyall subjects ; and doe most humbly be- 
seech your majestie soe to owne and avowe us j and as 



315 



such we present unto ypur majestie these eiisueing griev- 
ances, and causes of the present distempers. 

Imprimis, The cathoHques of this kingdome, wliome 
no reward could invite, no persecution enforce, to for- 
sake that religion professed by them and their ancestors 
for thirteen hundred years, or thereabouts, are since 
the second yeare of the reigne i^f queene Elizabeth, 
made incapable of places of honour or trust, in church 
or commonwealth ; their nobles become contemptible, 
their gentry debarred from learning in universities, or 
public schools within this kingdom ; their younger 
brothers put by all manner of imployment in their na- 
tive country, and necessitated (to their great discomfort, 
and impoverishment of the land) to seeke education and 
fortune abroad ; misfortunes made incident to the said 
catholiques of Ireland only (their numbers, qualitie, and 
loyaltie considered) of all the nations of Christendome. 

£. Secondly, That by this incapacitie, which in re- 
spect of their religion was imposed upon the said ca- 
tholiques ; men of meane condition and qualitie for the 
most part, were in this kingdome imployed in places of 
greatest honour and trust, who being to begin a fortune, 
built it on the mines of the catholique natives, att all 
tymes lying open to be discountenanced, and wrought 
uppon; and who (because they would seeme to be 
carefull of the government,) did, from tyme to tyme, 
suggest false and mahcious matters against them, to ren- 
der them suspected and odious in England ; from which 
ungrounded informations, and their many other ill of- 



316 

fices, these mischiefs have befallen the catholiques of 
Ireland. First, the opposition given to all the graces 
and favours that your majesty, or your late royall father, 
promised, or intended to the natives of this kingdom ; 
secondly, the procuring false inquisitions, upon faigned 
titles, of their estates, against many hundred years pos- 
session, and no travers, or petition of right, admitted 
thereunto, and jurors denying to tind such offices were 
censured even to pubiique infamie, and mine of their 
estates, the findeing thereof being against their consci- 
ences, and their evidences ; and nothing must stand 
against such offices taken of great and considerable 
parts of the kingdome, but letters pattents under the 
great scale ; and if letters pattents were produced, (as 
in most cases they were) none mu«t be allowed valid, 
nor yet sought to be legally avoyded : soe that, of late 
tymes, by the underhand workeing of sir William Par- 
sons, knight, now oneof the lords justices heere, and the 
arbitrary illegal power of the two impeached judges in 
parliament, and others drawen by their advise and cpun- 
seil, oiie hundred and fifty letters patents were avoyded 
in one morning ; which course continued untill all the 
pattents of the kingdome, to a few were by them and 
their associates declared void ; such was the care those 
ministers had of your majestie's great scale, being the 
pubiique faith of the kingdome. This way of service, 
in shew only pretended for your majestic, proved to your 
disservice ; and to the immoderate, and too tymely ad- 
vancement of the said ministers of state, and their ad- 
herents, and nearly to the utter ruine of the said catho- 
liques. 



317 

3. That, whereas your majestie's late royall father, 
king James, having a princely and fatherly care of this 
kingdome, was gratiously pleased to graunt several large 
and beneficial com missions, under the great scale of 
England, and severall instructions, and letters under his 
privie signett, for the p assing and securing of the estates 
of his subjects here by letters pattents under die great 
scale, and letters pattents accordingly were thereof pas- 
sed, fvnes payed, old rents increased, and new rents re- 
served to the crowns. And the said late king w^as fur- 
ther graciously pleased to graunt att severall tymes, to 
send divers honorable persons of integntie, knowledge 
and experience, to examine the grievances of this king- 
dome, and to settle and establish a course for redress 
thereof. And whereas your m?jestie was graciously 
pleased, in the fourth year of your raigne, to vouchsafe a 
favourable heareing to the grievances presented unto 
you, by agents from this kingdome; and thereupon did 
grant many graces and favours unto your subjects tb.ere- 
of, for securitie of their estates, and redress for remove 
of those heavy pressures, under which thev have long 
groaned ; acts of justice, and grace extended to this 
people by your majestic, and your said royall father, did 
afford them great content, yet such was, and is yet, the 
immortal hatred, of some of the said ministers of state, 
and especially of the said sir William Parsons, the said 
impeached judges and their adherents, to any welfare and 
happiness of this nation, and their ambition to make 
themselves still greater and richer, by the total mine and 
extirpation of this people ; that under pretence of your 



318 

msje^tie's service, the publique faith involved in those 
graius was violated, and the grace and goodness intended, 
by two glorious kings successively, to a faithful people, 
made unprofitable^ 

4. The illegall, arbitiary, and unlawfull proceedings 
of the said sir William Parsons, and one of the said im- 
peached judges, and their adherents and instruments, in 
the court of wards, and the many wilfully erroneous de- 
crees and judgments of that court, by which the heirs of 
catholique noblemen, and other catholiques, were most 
cruelly and tyrannically dealt withall, destroyed in their 
estates, and bred in dissolution and ignorance, their pa- 
rents debts unsatisfied, their sisters and younger brothers 
left wholly unprovided for, auncient and appearing te- 
nures of mesne lords vmregarded, estates valid in law, 
and made for valuable considerations, avoyded against 
law, and the whole land filled upp \yith the frequent 
swarmes of escheators, feodaryes, pursuivants, and others, 
by authoritie of that court. • 

5. The said catholiques, notwithstanding the heavy 
pressures before-mentioned, and other grievances, in 
part represented to your majestic by the late committees 
of both houses of parliament of this kingdom, (where- 
unto they humbly desire that relation be had, and redress 
obtained therein,) did readyly, and without reluctance, 
or repining, contribute to all the subsidies, loans, and 
other extraordinary graunts made to your majestic in 
this kingdome, since the beginning of your raigne, 
amounting unto well neere one million of poundes, over 



319 

and above your majestie's revenue, both certain and ca-= 
suall : and although the said cathohques were in parlia- 
ment, and otherwise the most forvv ard in graunting the 
said summes, and did beare nyne parts of ten in the 
payment thereof, yett such was the power of their ad- 
versaryes, and the advantage they gained by the oppor- 
tunitie of their continuall address to your majestic, to 
increase their reputation in getting in of those mor.eys, 
and their authoritie in the distribution thereof to your 
majestie's greate disservice, that they assumed to them- 
selves to be the procurors thereof, and represented the 
said catholiques as obstinate and refractory. 

6. The army raised for your majestie's service here, 
at the great charge of the kingdome, w as disbanded by 
the pressing importunitie of the malignant partie in 
England, not giving way that your majestic should ad- 
vise therein with the parliament here ; alledging the same 
army w^as popish, and therefore not to be ti usted ; and 
although the world could witness the unwarrantable and 
unexampled invasion made by the malignant partie of 
the parliament in England, uppon your majestie's 
honour, rights, prerogatives, and principail flowers of 
your crowne; and that the said sir William Parsons, 
sir Adam Loftus knight, your majestie's vice-treasurer 
of the kingdome, and others their adherents, did declare 
that an army of ten thousand Scotts was to arrive in 
this kingdome, to force the said catholiques to change 
their religion,^ and that Ireland could never doe well 
without a rebellion, to the end the remaine of the na- 
tives thereof might be extirpated : and wagers were laid 



320 

at a geoerail assizes and publique meetings, by some of 
them then, and now imployed in places of greate pro- 
fitt and trust in this kingdome, that within one yeare no 
cathohque should be left in Ireland ; and that they saw 
the ancient and unquestionable privileges of the parlia- 
ment in England, in sending for and questioning, to, 
and in, that parliament, the members of the parliament 
of this kingdome, sitting the parliament here ; and that 
by speeches, and orders printed by authoritie of both 
houses in England, it was declared that Ireland was 
bound by the statutes made in England, if named, which 
is contrary to know en truth, and the law^s here settled for 
fowre hundred yeares, and upwards ; and that the said 
catholiques were thoroughly enformed of the protesta- 
tion made by both houses of Parliament of England 
against catholiques, and of their intentions to introduce 
lawes for the extirpation of catholique religion in the 
three kingdomes : and that they had certain notice of the 
bloody execution of priests there, only for being priests, 
and that your majesty's mercy and power could not pre- 
vaile with them to save the lyfe of one condemned priest; 
and that the catholiques of England being of their own 
flesh and blood, must suffer or depart the land, and con- 
sequently others not of so neer a relation to them, if 
bound by their statutes, and within their power. These 
motives, although very strong and powerfull to produce 
apprehensions and fears in the said catholiques, did not 
prevaile with them to take defensive armes, much less 
offensive ; they still expecting that your majestie in your 
high wisdome might be able in a short tyme, to apply 



321 

seasonable cures, and apt remedies unto those evils and 
innovations. 

7. That the committees of the lords and commons of 
this kingdome, having attended yonr majestie for the 
space of nyne months, your majestie was graciously 
pleased, notwithstanding your then weightie and urgent 
affayrs in England and Scotland, to receive, and very 
often with great patience to hear their grievances, and 
many debates thereof at large ; during which debates, the 
said lords justices, and some of your privy council of 
this kingdome, and their adherents, by their malicious and 
untrue informations conveyed to some ministers of state 
in England, (who since are declared of the malignant 
partie,) and by the continuall solicitation of others of 
the said privy councill, gone to England of purpose to 
cross and give impediment unto the justice and grace 
your majesty was inclined to afford to your subjects of 
this realme, did as much as in them lay, hinder the ob- 
tayning of any redress for the said grievances, and not 
prevailing therein with your majestie as they expected, 
have by their letters and instruments, laboured with many 
leading members of the parliament there, to give stopp 
and interruption thereunto, and likewise transmitted unto 
your majestie, and some of the state of England, sun- 
dery misconstructions and misrepresentations of the pro- 
ceedings and actions of your parliament of this kingdome, 
and thereby endeavoured to possess your majestie with 
an evil opinion thereof ; and that the said pariiament had 
no power of judicature in capitall causes, (which is an 

2 T 



522 

essentiall part of parliament) thereby aymeing at thr 
inipunltie of some of them, and others, who were then 
impeached of high treason : and at the destruction of 
this parliament : but the said lords justices and privey 
councell, observing that no art or practice of theirs could 
be powerfull to withdraw your majestie's grace and good 
intentions from this people, and that the redress graunted 
of some particular grievances w^as to be passed as acts 
in parliament ; the said lords justices, and their adherents, 
with the height of malice, envieing the good union long 
before settled, and continued between the members of 
the house of commons, and their good conespondence 
with the lords, left nothing unattempted, which might 
rayse discord, and disunion in the said house ; and by 
some of themselves, and some instruments of theirs in 
the said commons house, private meetings of greate 
numbers of the said house were appointed, of purpose 
to rayse distinction of nation and religion, by meanes 
whereof a faction was made there, which tended much 
to the disquiet of the house, and disturbance of your 
majestie's and the publique service ; and after certain 
knowledge that the said committees were by the water 
side in England, with sundry important and beneficial 
bills, and other graces, to be passed as acts, in that par- 
liament ; of purpose to prevent the same, the said fac- 
tion, by the practice of the said lords justices, and some 
of the said privy councill and their adherents, in a tu- 
multuous and disorderly manner, on the seventh day of 
August 1641, and on severall days before, cried out for 
an adjournment of the house, and being over-voted bj 



323 

the voices of the more moderate partie, the said lords 
justices and their adherents told severall honourable 
peers, that if they did not adjourne the lords house on 
that day, being Saturday, that they would themselves 
prorogue or adjourne the parliament On the next Mun- 
day following, by means whereof, and of great num- 
bers of proxies of noblemen, not estated, nor at any 
time resident in this kingdome, (which is destructive to 
the libertye and freedom of parliaments here,) the lords 
house was on the said seventh day of August adjourned, 
and the house of commons by occasion thereof, and of 
the faction aforesaid, adjourned soone after, by which 
meanes those bills and graces, according to your ma- 
jestie's intention, and the great expectation and longing 
desires of your people, could not then pass as acts of 
parliament. 

Within a few dayes after this fatal and enforced ad- 
journment, the said committees arrived at Dublin, with 
their dispatch from your majestic, and presented the 
same to the lords justices and councill, expressing a right 
sense of the said adjournment, and besought their lord- 
ships for the satisfaction of the people, to require short 
heads of that part of the dispatch wherein your majestic 
did appeare in the best manner unto your people, might 
be suddauiely conveyed unto all the partes of the king- 
dome, attested by the said lords justices, to prevent des- 
paire, or misunderstanding. This was promised to be 
done, and an instrument drawen, and presented unto 
them for this purpose, and yett, (as it seems desireing 

2 T 2 



324 

rather to add fuell to the fire of the subjects discontents, 
than quench the same,) they did forbeare to give any no- 
tice thereof to the people, 

8. After this, certaine dangerous and pernitious pe- 
titions, centrived by the advice and councell of the said 
^ir Wilham Parsons, sir Adam Loftus, sir John Clot- 
worthy, knights, Arthure Hill, Esq. and sundry other 
malignant partie, and signed by many thousands of the 
malignant partie in the city of Dublin, in the province 
of Ulster, und in sundry other of the partes in this king- 
dome, directed to the commons house in England, were 
at publique assizes and other publique places made 
known and read, to many persons of qualitie in this 
kingdoms, which petitions contayned matters destructive 
to the said cathoiiques, their religions, lives and estates, 
and were the more to be feared by reason of the active 
power of the said sir John Clotworthy in the commons 
house in England, in opposition to your majestic, and his 
barbarous and inhumane expressions in that howse 
against catholique religion, and the professors thereof. 
So one after an order conceaved in the commons house 
of England, that no man should bowe unto the name of 
Jesus, (attthe sacred sound whereof all knees should 
bend) came to the knowledge of the said cathoiiques, 
and that the said malignant partie did contrive and plott 
to extinouish their religion and nation. Hence it did 
arise that some of the said cathoiiques begun to consider 
the deplorable and desperate condition they were in, by 
a statute lavv^ here found among the records of this king- 



325 

dome, of the second veare of the raip;ne of the late 
queen EHzabeth (but never executed in her tyme, nor 
discovered till most of the members of that parliament 
were dead); by which no catholique of this kingdome 
could enjoy his life, estate, or lyberty if the said statute 
were executed ; whereunto no impediment remayned hut 
your majestie's prerogative and power, which were en- 
deavoured to be clipped, or taken away, as is before 
rehearsed; then the plot of destruction by an army of 
Scotland, and another of the m.alignant partie in Eng- 
land, must be executed ; the feares of those twofold 
destructions, and their ardent desire to maintain that just 
prerogative, whicli might encounter and remove it, did 
necessitate some catholiques in the North, about the C^d 
of October, 1641, to take armes in maintenance of 
their religion, your majestie's rights, and the preserva- 
tion of life, estate, and libertie ; and immediately there- 
iippon tooke a solemn oath, and sent several declara- 
tions to the lords justices and councill to that effect ; 
and humbly desired they m.ight be heard in parliament, 
unto the determination whereof, they were ready to sub- 
mit themselves and their demands ; w hich declarations 
being received, were slighted by the said lords justices, 
who by the swaying part of the said council, and by 
the advice of the said two impeached judges, glad of 
any occasion to put off the parliament, which by the 
former adjournment w as to meete soone after, caused a 
proclamation to be published on the 2Sd of the said 
month of October 1641, therein accusing all the catho- 
liques of Ireland of iiisloyaltie, and thereby declareing 



326 

that the parliament was prorogued untill the £6th of Fe- 
bruary following. 

9. Within a few dayes after the said 23d day of Oc- 
tober 1641, many lords and other persons of ranke and 
qualitie, made their humble address to the said lords 
justices and councill, and made it evidently appeare unto 
them, that the said piorogation was against law, and 
humbly besought the parliament might sit according to 
their former adjournment, which was then the only ex- 
pedient, to compose or remove the then growing dis- 
contents and troubles of the land ; and the said lords 
justices, and their partie of the councill, then well know- 
ing that the members of both houses throughout the 
kingdome (a few in and about Dublin only accepted,) 
would stay from the meeting of both houses, by reason 
of the said prorogation, did by proclamation two days 
before the time, give way the parliament might sitt, 
but so limited, that no act of grace, or any thing else 
for the people's quiet or satisfaction, might be propound- 
ed or passed. And diereuppon, a few of the lords and 
commons appeared in the parliament house, who in 
their entrance at the castle-bridge and gate, and within 
the yard to the parliament house doore, and recess from 
thence, were invironed with a great number of armed 
men with their match lighted, and muskets presented 
even at the breasts of the members of both houses, none 
being admitted to bring one servant to attend him, or 
any weapon about him within the castle-bridge. Yet 
how thin soever the houses were, or how much over- 



327 

awed, they both did suppUcate the lords justices and 
councill, that they might continue for a tyme together, 
and expect the coming of the rest of both houses, to 
the end they might quiet the troubles in full parliament, 
and that some acts of securitie graunted by your ma- 
jestic, and transmitted under the great scale of England, 
might pass to settle the minds of your majestie's subjects. 
But to these requests, soe much conduceing to your 
majestie's service, and settlement of your people, a flatt 
denyal was given ; and the said lords justices and their 
partie of the councill, by their workeing with their partie 
in both bowses of parliameat, being then verv thyn as 
aforesaid, propounded an order should be conceaved in 
parliament, that the said discontented gentlemen tooke 
armes in rebellious manner, which was resented much by 
the best aifected of both bowses ; but being awed as 
aforesaid, and credibly informed, if some particular per- 
sons amongst them stood in opposition thereunto, that 
the said musketteers were directed to shoot them at 
their goeing out of the parliament house, thorough which 
terror, way was given to that order. 

1 0. Notwithstanding all the beforementioned provoca- 
tions, pressures, and indignities, the farr greater, and 
more considerable parte of the catholiques, and all the 
cittyes and corporations of Ireland, and whole provinces, 
stood quiet in their bowses ; whereupon the lords justices 
and their adherents, well knowing that many powerful! 
members of the parliament of England stood in opposition 
to your majestie, made their application and addressed 



3^8 

tlieir dispatches, full fraught with calumnies and false sug-- 
gestions against the catholiqiies of this kingdome, and 
propounded unto them, to send several] great forces to 
conquer this kingdome ; those of the malignant partie 
here were by them armed ; the catholiques w ere not only 
denyed armes, but were disarmed, even in the citty of 
Dubhn, which in all successions of ages past continued 
as loyaii to the crowne of England, as any citty or place 
whatsoever; all other auncient and loyaii cittyes and 
corporatt townes of the kingdome, (by means whereof 
principally the kingdome was preserved in former tymes) 
were denied amies for their money to defend themselves, 
and express order given by the said lords justices to disarme 
all catholiques in some of the said citiyes and townes : 
others disfurnished were inhibited to provide arms for their 
defence, and the said lords justices and councell having re- 
ceived an order of both houses of parliament in Eng- 
land, to publish a proclamation of pardon unto all those 
who were then in rebellion (as they tearmed it) in this 
kingdome, if tiiey did submit by a day to be limited, the 
said sir V/iiliam Parsons, contrary to this order, soe 
wrought w ith his partie of the councill, that a proclama- 
tion w as published of pardon only in two countyes, and 
a very short day prefixed, and therehi all freeholders were 
excepted ; through which every man saw that the estates 
of the catholiques w ere first aymed att, and their lives 
next. I'he said lords justices and their partie haveing 
advanced their designe thus far, and not lindrng the suc- 
cess answerable to their desires, commanded sir Charles 
Coote, knight and baronet, deceased, to march to tha 



329 

county of Wickloe, where he burnt, killed, and destroyed 
all in his way in a most cruell manner, man, woman 
and childe ; persons that had not appearing wills to doe 
hurt, nor power to execute iU Soone after, some foote 
companies did march in the night by direction of the said 
lords justices, and their said partie, to the town of San- 
try in Fingall, three miles off Dublin ; a country that 
neither then, nor for the space of four or five hundred 
yeares before, did feele what troubles were, or war 
meant ; but it was too sweet and too near, and therefore 
fitt to be forced to armes. In thattowne innocent hus- 
bandmen, some of them being catholiques, and some 
protestants taken for catholiques, were murdered in their 
inn, and their heads carried triumphant into Dublin* 
Next morning, complaint being made of this, no redress 
was obtayned therein ; whereupon some gentlemen of 
quahtie, and others the inhabitants of the country, see- 
ing what was then acted, and what passed in the said last 
march towards the county of Wickloe, and justly fear- 
ing to be all murthered, forsooke their bowses, and were 
coiistrayned to stand together in their own defence, 
though ill provided of armes or ammunition. Heere- 
upon a proclamation w^as agreed upon at the board, on 
the 13th of December, 1641, and not published or print* 
ed till the 15th December, by which the said gentle- 
men, and George Kinge by name, were required to come 
in by, or upon the 18 th of the said month, and a safe- 
tie was therein promised them. On the same day another 
proclamation was published, summoning the lords dwell* 
ing in the English pale near Dublin to a grand councill 



330 

on the 17 til of the said month ; but the lords justices and 
their partie of the council!, to take away all hope of 
accommodation, gave direction to the said sir Charles 
Coote, the said 15 th day of the said month of Decem- 
ber, to march to ClontarfFe, being the howse and towne 
of the said George Kinge, and two miles from Dublin, 
to pillage, burn, kill, and destroy all that there was to 
be found ; which direction was readily and particularly 
observed, (in a manyfest breach of public faith) by 
meanes whereof, the meeting of the said grand coun- 
cill was diverted : the lords not daring to come within 
the power of such notorious faith-breakers : the conside- 
ration whereof, and of other the matters aforesaid, made 
the nobilitie and gentry of the English pale, and other 
parts of tke province of Leinster, sensible of the present 
danger, and put themselves in the best posture they could 
for their naturall defence. Wherefore they employed 
lieutenant colonel Read to present their humble remon- 
strance to your sacred majestic, and to declare unto you 
the state of their afFayres, and humbly to beseech relief 
and redress ; the said lieutenant collonel, though your 
majestie's servant, and imployed in publique trust, (in 
which case the law of nations affords safety and protec- 
tion) was without regard to either, not only stopped from 
proceeding in his imployment^ but also tortured on the 
rack at Dublin. 

11. The lord president of Munster, by the direc« 
tion of the said lords justices, (that province being quiet) 
with his accomplices, bumt^ preyed, and put to death 



381 

men, women, and children, ^vithout making any differ- 
ence of qualitie, condition, age, or sex, in several parts 
of the province ; the catholique nobles and gentle- 
men there were mistrusted and threatened, and others of 
inferior quality trusted and furnished with armes and am- 
munition. The provmce of Connaught was used in the 
like measure ; whereupon most of the considerable ca- 
tholiques in both the said provinces were inforced (with- 
out armes or ammunition) to look after their safety, and 
to that end, did stand on theii' defence ; still expecting 
your majestie's pleasure, and always ready to obey your 
commands. Now the plot of the said ministers of state 
and their adherents being even ripe, applications were in- 
cessantly by them made to the malignant partie in Eng- 
land, to deprive this people of all hopes of your ma- 
jestie's justice or mercie, and to plant a perpetual enmi- 
ty between the Scottish and English nations, and your 
subjects of this kingdome. 

12. That whereas this your Majestie's kingdome of 
Ireland in all successions of ages, since the raigne of 
king Henry the Second, sometime king of England and 
lord of Ireland, had parliaments of their owne, com- 
posed of lords and commons in the same manner and 
forme, qualified with equal liberties, powers, privileges, 
and immunities with the parliament of England, and 
onely depend of the king and crow ne of England and 
Ireland : and for all that tyme, no prevalent record or 
authentique president can be found that any statute made 
iu England could or did bind this kingdome, before the 
S u 2 



532 

aame word were here established by parliament ; yet 
upon untrue suggestions and niformations, given of your 
subjects of Ireland, an act of parliament tiitituled, an 
act for the speedie aiid effectual reducing the rebells in 
his majestie's knigdome of Ireland to their due obedience 
to his majestic and the crowne of England; and another 
act, intituled, an act for adding unto and explayneing 
tlie said foriner act, was proem ed to be enacted in the 
said parUament of England, in the eighteenth yeare of 
your majestie*s raigne ; by which acts, and other pro- 
clamations, your majestie's subjects unsummor>ed, un- 
heard, were declared rebells, and two millions and a 
half acres arrable, meadow and profitable pasture, withiri 
this kingdome, sold to undertakers for certain summes 
of monie ; and the edifices, loghs, \\ oodes, and bogges, 
wastes and other their appurtenances, were thereby men- 
tioned to be granted and past gratis. Which acts the 
said catholiques do conceave to have been forced upon 
your majestic ; and although void, and unjust, in them* 
selves to all purposes, yet containe matters of evil consc«s 
quence and extreame prejudice to your majestic, and to- 
tally destructiye to this nation. The scope seeming to 
aime at rebells only, and at the disposition of a certaine 
quantitie of land ; but in effect and substance all the 
landes in the kingdome, by the words of the said acts, 
may be distributed, in whose possession soever they were 
without respect to age, condition, or qualitie ; and all 
your majestie's tenures, and the greatest part of your 
majestie's standing revenue in this kingdome, tafceiii 
away ; and by the said acts, if they were of force, all 



333 

power of pardoning and of granting those lands, is taken 
from your majestic ; a precedent that no age can instance 
the like. Against this act the said catholiques do pro- 
test, as an act against the fundamental! lawes of this 
kingdorae, and as an act destructive to your majestie's 
rights and prerogatives, by coUour whereof, most of the 
forces sent hither to infest this kingdome by sea and 
land, disavowed any authoritie from your majestie, but 
do depend upon the parliament of England. 

13. All strangers, and such as were not inhabitants 
of the citty of Dublin, being commanded by the said- 
lords justices, in and since the said month of Novem- 
ber, 1641, to depart the said citty, were no sooner de- 
parted, then they were by the directions of the said lords 
justices pillaged abroad, and their goods seized upon 
and confiscated in Dublin ; and they desireing to re- 
turne under tlie protection and safetie of the state, be- 
fore their appearance in action, were denied the same ; 
and divers other, persons of rank and qualitie, by the 
said lords justices imployed in pubhqe service, and others 
keeping close within their doores, without annoying 
any man, or siding then with any of the said catholiques 
in armes, and others in severall parts of the kingdome 
living under, and having the protection and safetie of 
the state, were sooner pillaged, their bowses burnt, 
themselves, their tenants and servants killed and de- 
stroyed, than any other by the direction of the said lords 
justices. And by the like direction, when any com- 
inander in chiefe of the army, promised, or gave quarter 



334 

or protection, the same was in all cases violated ; and 
many persons of qualitie, who obtained the same, were 
ruined before others ; others that came into Dublin vo- 
luntarily, and that could not be justly suspected of any 
crime, if Irishmen or catholiques, by the like direction 
were pillaged in Dublin, robbed and pillaged abroad, 
and brought to their trial for their lives. The cittys of 
Dublin and Corke, and the ancient corporatt townes ©f 
Drogeda, Yeoghal and Kingsale, who voluntarily re- 
ceived garrisons in your majestie^s name, and the adja- 
cent countryes who relieved them, were worse used, and 
now live in worse condition than the Isrealites did in 
Egypt ; so that it will be made appeare, that more 
murders, breaches of publique faith and quarter, more 
destruction and desolation, more crueltie, not fitt to 
be named, were committed in Ireland, by the direction 
and advice of the said lords justices and their partie of 
the said councill in less then eighteene months, than 
canhe parallelled to have been done by any Christian 
people, 

14. The said lords justices and their adherents have, 
against the fundamental lawes of the lande, procured the 
sitting of both bowses of paliament for several! sessions, 
(nyne parts of ten of the natural! and genuine members 
thereof being absent, it standing not with their safety 
to come under their power) and made upp a considera- 
ble number in the howse of commons of clerks, souldiers, 
serving men, and others not legally, or not chosen 
at all, or returned, and having no manner of estate 



335 

within the kingdome ; in which sitting, sundry orders 
were conceived, and dismisses obteyned of persons be- 
fore impeached of treason in full parliament; and which 
passed or might have passed some acts against law and 
to the prejudice of your majestic and this whole nation. 
And dureing these troubles^ termes were kept, and yoiir 
majestie's court of cheefe place, and other courts sate 
at Dublin, to no other end or purpose, but by false 
and illegall judgments, outlawries, and other capitall 
proceedings to attaint many thowsands of your majestie's 
most faithful subjects of this kingdome, they being never 
summoned, nor having notice of those proceedings ; she- 
riffs^ made of obscure meane persons, by the like prac- 
tice, appointed of purpose ; and poore artificers, com- 
mon soldiers and meniall servants returned jurors, to pass 
upon the lives and estates of those who came in upon 
protection and public faith. 

Therefore the said catholiques, in the behalfe of 
themselves and of the whole kingdome of Ireland, doe 
protest and declare against the said proceedings, in the 
nature of parliaments, and in the other courts aforesaid, 
and every of them, as being heynous crimes against law , 
destructive to parliaments and your majestie's preroga- 
tives and authoritie, and the rights and just liberties of 
your most faithful subjects. 

Forasmuch, dread soveraigne, as the speedy apply- 
cation of apt remedyes unto these grievances and heavie 
pressures; will tend to the settlement and improvement 



336 

of your majestie's revenue, the prevention of further 
effusion of blood, the preservation of this kingdome from 
desolation, and the content and satisfaction of your said 
subjects, who in manifestation of their duty and zeal to 
your majestie's service, will be most willing and ready ta 
employ ten thonsand men under the conduct of well ex- 
perienced commanders in defence of your royal rights 
and prerogatives ; they therefore most hui^ibly beseech 
your majestic, that you will vouchsafe gracious answers 
to these their humble and just complaints, and for the 
establishment of your people in a lastmg peace and se- 
curitie, the said catholiques doe most humbly pray, that 
your majestic may be further gratiously pleased to call a 
free parliament in this kingdome, in such convenient 
tyme as your majestic in your high wisdom shall think 
fitt, and the mgencie of the present affaires of the said 
kingdome doth require ; and that the said parliament be 
held in an indifferent place, summoned by, and continued 
before some person or persons of honour and fortune, 
of approved faith to your majestic, and acceptable to 
your people here, and to be tymely placed by your ma- 
jestie in this government, which is most necessary for 
the advancement of your service, and present condition 
of the kingdome : in which parliament, the said catho- 
liques doe humbly pray these or others their grievances 
may be redressed ; and that in the said parliament, a 
statute made in this kingdome in the tenth yeare of 
king Henry the Seventh, commonly called Poyning's 
Act, and all acts explayning, or enlarging the same, be 
by a particular act suspended during that parliament^ 



337 

as it hath beene already done in the eleventh yeare of 
queene Elizabeth, upon occasion of far less moment 
than now doe offer themselves ; and that your majestic, 
with the advice of the said parliament, will be pleased 
to take a course for the further repealing or further con- 
tinuance of the said statutes, as may best conduce to the 
advancement of your service here, and peace of this your 
realme ; and that no matter, whereof complaint is made 
in this remonstrance, may debaiT catholiques, or give 
interruption to their free votes, or sitting in the said par- 
liament, and as in duty bound they will ever pray for 
your majestie's long and prosperous raigne over them. 

Wee the undernamed being thereunto authorized, doe 
present and signe this remonstrance in the behalfe of 
the catholiques of Ireland, dated this i7th day of 
March, 1642. 

GORMANSTON. LuCAS DlLLON. 

RoBEKT Talbgtt. John Walsh. 

According to your majestie's commission to us di- 
rected, we have received this remonstrance, subscribed 
by the lord viscount Gormanston, sir Lucas Dillon, 
knight, sir Robert Talbott, bart. and John Walsh, esq. 
authorized by, and in the behalfe of the recusants of 
Ireland, to present the same unto us to be transmitted 
to your sacred majestic, dated the 17th day of March, 
1642. 

Clanricard and St. Albans. 
Roscommon. 

Moore. Mau. Eistace. 

fx 



338 



APPENDIX, No. 11. 

Inshnidions of the Committee of English Catholics 
to Mr. Hussey, respecting the object of his 
Deputation from them to the See of Rome, 

Mr* Hussey will make every prudent exertion to clear 
up any misrepresentations of the proceedings of the 
Committee of English Catholics, and to give an accurate 
account of the state of the Catholics in this country. 

The main object which he is requested to keep steadily 
in view, is the necessity the English Catholics were 
under of vindicating the integrity of their principles, re- 
pelling the slanderous charges uniformly brought against 
them for two centuries past: and of removing those 
penal and disabling statutes, which have been gradually 
undermining their body, and must at length operate 
almost a total extinction of the Cathohc religion in 
these dominions. 

He will represent that religion has always been sup- 
ported, and is at present every where supported, except 
,in some few populous towns, entirely by the voluntary 
munificence of the nobility and gentry : and unless they 



339 



recover their rights, there is an imminent clanger of the 
Catholic religion declining with great rapidity. 

He will take an opportunity of expressing the surprise^ 
and astonishment of the peers and gentry, who never re- 
ceived any answer to the application they made on the 
election of Mr. Berrington. 

He will explain the rise and progress of the present 
business, and shew shat the protestation was not a vo« 
luntary offer of the Committee ; but a pledge of upright- 
ness called for by their Protestant fellow-subjects; — that 
it w as not attempted to be carried into execution, as a 
basis of public measures, until it had been approved and 
signed by the Apostolic Vicars, the far greater part of 
the clergy, and most of the respectable laity in the four 
districts; — that it has been already presented to Parlia- 
ment, and therefore, if the present form be not perfectly 
correct in the wording, the Committee are not to blame^ 
because no alterations were preYiously called for by the 
clergy : and the deed having gone before Parliament, it 
cannot possibly be revoked. 

Mr. Hussey will be pleased to insist, if necessary ,^ 
upon this principle, that what has been done cannot be 
undone ; and to explain, that the protestation was not 
intended to hurt religion, but to serve it ;— not to infringe 
the communion of English Catholics with the holy 
Apostolic See, but to render that communion less odl- 
oiis ;™not to preindice the character of the first pastoi 



340 



of the church, but to rescue it from obloquy and 

abuse. 

If the oath be called for, Mr. Hussey will represent 
that the Catholics of the present times are only responsi- 
ble for the protestation: — the oath of allegiance and 
abjuration, having been equivalently taken in 1778; 
and of course the deposing doctrine having been so- 
lemnly renounced and abjured, the English Catholics 
could not hesitate to adopt the qualifying terms ; espe- 
cially as the Sorbonnein 1680, and again in 1775, had 
informed them, that they might with safety declare it 
impious and heretical. 

If any scruple be raised about the Act of Settlement^ 
and limiting the succession of the crown to the Pro- 
testant Line, Mr. Hussey zoill not permit that subject 
to be discussed; because the English Catholics acknow^ 
ledge no authority to interfere with the succession of 
their kings, but the law of the land; the authority of 
which law they have already solemnly acknowledged by 
their oath of allegiance of 1778. 

Mr. Hussey will bear an honourable testimony to the 
character of Mr. Berrington, and insinuate, that any 
doubts about his character must reflect on the secular 
clergy who elected — the regular clergy who expressed 
their satisfaction on hearing of that choice — and on the 
nobility and gentry, who ardently desired that election to 
be confirmed. 



S41 



Mr. Hussey will endeavour to pave the way fer 
having bishops in ordinary elected by their clergy, on 
two grounds ; — firstly, on account of the great utility of 
the change in the present circumstances of the English 
Catholics ; — secondly, on the supposition that the legis- 
lature may soon require that change to be made. 



Thomas Aconensis. 
Carolus Hiero Cesa- 

RIENSIS. 

Joseph Wilks. 



Stourton. 
Petre. 

Henry C. Englefield. 
John Throckmorton, 
William Fermor. 
Thomas Hornyold. 



THE END. 



ERRATA. 

Page 116 line 10, for number read member. 

118, in note,/or vol. 3, read vol. 2. 

203, line 4, for the so much read so mucli the. 

235^ — _ 2^ for avocation read vocation. 



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